It’s the final day of our second manta safari in collaboration with Conservation International. Even though it’s Sunday, we still had a busy day. Three survey dives at three locations: Batu Bolong, Siaba Besar and Manta Point. We began early this morning at Batu Bolong, but unfortunately encountered zero manta rays. After a few hours we moved to Siaba Besar looking for other marine creatures.

Siaba Besar is a unique dive site. Unlikely the other sites we have visited so far, Siaba Besar does not have many coral communities. It looks like a beautiful lagoon, with small islands surrounding shallow, white sands and with no current. After only a few minutes underwater, we found a scorpionfish! Be careful guys! It was fortunate that we were with Andy and his eagle eyes spotted the scorpionfish before we might touch it accidentally.

Bu the most amazing thing about this site was we saw many sea turtles along the way. We identified two green turtles and two hawksbill turtles. They appear to be very relaxed, sitting between boulders on the coral reef. Two were very large, while one of the hawksbills looked like a juvenile. Beautiful clear water and sandy seafloor makes a perfect home for sea turtles in Komodo National Park.

Miko snaps a sleeping turtle

At Manta Point we didn’t find mantas until the very end of the dive, when three suddenly appears. The interns couldn’t take any photo IDs because of the low visibility and the mantas were swimming very fast. Fortunately, Abam and Andy managed to collect five ID photos.

That was our last dive on our liveaboard journey with CI. We were really happy to see many sea creatures and some new sites during this trip, and to learn more about manta ray research with Conservation International. And of course, today, taking our photo together in the calm, sandy environment of Siaba Besar.

MIP-2016 team photo