Today is the fifth day of our MantaWach Internship Program and our second day onboard the MV Tatawa. We’ve had some waves and a little seasickness, but all of us interns are very happy because today we began practicing our MantaWatch survey techniques.

Our first dive was at Manta Alley. This is one of the famous manta sites in south Komodo. I was surprised because the water temperature was very cold, like a fresh mountain stream! But we were not disappointed, and found six mantas. We even managed to take four manta ID photos. The most exciting thing for me was collecting my first manta ID photos.

My first manta ID photo

Next we headed to a nearby dive site known as German Flag. It is named after the red, yellow and black bands of rock in the cliff above the dive site. Here we found only one small manta. It swam around us, showing that because of our good buoyancy and following the manta code of conduct, the manta was comfortable with our presence. And we were very happy too!

We went back to Manta Alley hoping to find more mantas there, but we were unlucky. Though we did learn more about team work, communicating with our buddy, buoyancy, and much more.

As well as studying manta surveys, we also have a chance to improve our diving skill through the PADI Advanced Open Water course. How lucky we are!

We ended the day with another first for us all. A night dive at Padar Besar. We saw many new creatures and their behaviors, including blooming yellow sea cucumber, nocturnal fish, crabs, jelly fish, and amazing bioluminescent plankton.

I hope that tomorrow will be just as exciting, and that we will continue to improve our diving skills for more safe underwater data collection.

Yellow sea cucumbers feeding at night