A Tempting Taste of Indonesian Liveaboards

Regaldive’s John Butland reports on his most recent dive trip: an exciting liveaboard adventure from aboard Mermaid II in the world famous Komodo.

A MERMAID II LIVEABOARD TRIP REPORT FROM REGALDIVE’S JOHN BUTLAND

After a few days enjoying the hospitality and diving of Bali, it was at last time to join the much anticipated liveaboard to the world famous Komodo.  It’s a trip that I had wanted to do for many years and it was great to eventually be on board the Mermaid II, meeting the crew and my companions for the week.  The Mermaid II is a comfortable boat, with a very enthusiastic crew who were determined to help us make the most of our week. 

The boat leaves Bali and makes the journey eastwards overnight, with a lovely sunset as we passed Lombok, arriving at the first dive site just after breakfast. Quite an easy check dive to start with of course, but still lots to see. We soon moved on to our first unusual dive, the semi-active Sangeang Volcano. It last erupted properly about a year ago and there is still the odd boom and plume of smoke from the visible crater. Of course the dive sites had volcano related names, such as Hot Rocks & Bubbles, the latter due to the bubbles of volcanic gas that emanate from the sea bed.  Both sites had a nice mixture of bigger fish like Sweetlips and our first look at the macro life, such as Pigmy Seahorse and Orangutan Crab, found only with the help of the expert guides. 

Then we moved on to dive around the island of Komodo itself. An afternoon and a night dive giving us a long list of species to be seen and photographed. The first dive of the next day was another, much anticipated highlight. The site is called Shotgun, the reason for this soon becoming obvious. All is very calm when you first drop in the water, descending to a sandy bottom covered in about a dozen big stingrays. We dropped into a shallow pit in the seabed and made sure we were all ready for what was to come.  As a group, we all ascended until the current caught us and we were riding the shotgun, the strongest current I have ever experienced, as the water is squeezed between two islands.  It lasts a few minutes and is a very exhilarating experience, hence why it’s a "must do" dive in the area. 

More day and night dives around Komodo followed, with everybody happy with the variety of underwater life encountered.  The next morning was a chance to go onto the island and get up close and almost personal with the famous Komodo Dragon. You can get very close, but luckily there are rangers on hand to prevent anyone becoming lunch for the world’s largest lizard. An hour long walk on the island also brought other wildlife such as Deer and Wild Boar into view.

We then moved on to the slightly colder waters to the south of Komodo and the island of Rinca. Although there was also plenty to keep the macro lover happy, such as Hairy Shrimp and Painted Frogfish, the highlight here has to be the big stuff. There was plenty of sharks (Blacktips & Whitetips) and best of all Manta Rays. Of course we have all been to sites called Manta Point and not seen a Manta all, but this time it delivered the goods with half a dozen spottings.  Another site nearby was the stand out part of the week for me though. On a drift dive over a relatively uninteresting reef I counted at least 25 Mantas coming in to the small coral areas to be cleaned.  Everyone came back from that dive with a big smile.

For this trip, the boat proceeded on to Maumere on Flores, as the next week it was making its way up to Raja Ampat for the winter. Probably good timing, as it was now the start of the rainy season around Bali and on our very last dive we returned to the boat in a downpour, with lightning in the distance.  The normal routing for this trip is back to Bali, nice and convenient for the trip home, not that anyone would want to leave such an amazing place. 

John's trip board the Mermaid II followed the Bali - Komodo - Maumere itinerary (8 days, 7 nights). The usual routing for this trip is Bali - Komodo - Bali  (8 days, 7 nights).

Prices for this trip are currently available during our LIDS 2016 Dive Show Sale period from just £1,333 per person (boat only).