Houston Underwater Photographic Society - Dive Cruise Report
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September 1st - September 21st
A full boat charter with the majority of the guests heavily armed with housed camera's, quite a few even had two different camera's to get the most from this cruise. Many mails were exchanged with the group before the cruise started. I felt I knew most of the group already. On arrival they were mad keen to pick my brains asking about conditions and photo opportunities.... there would be many!
The boat was great for this group, plenty of room for everyone to work on their their camera's. Easily enough room in the tender boats for the group and all the their camera's to be transported safely to the dive sites. The crew were great and made the trip fun with their friendly banter. Susana and Gary (the western crew) along with the captain were very accommodating to my new itinerary. They too were mad keen to check out some different sites in Komodo, for me I wanted to make sure all the guests managed to see the best critters and dive some great scenic dives so everyone got a good overview of the whole area.
Marine life; ghost pipefish galore, on a few sites we
had over 10 individuals and different species. A few different frogfish,
from tiny to huge individuals, 4 different species of sea horse, pigmy's
and big ones too. More unusual fish like Pegasus sea moths, fingered dragonets,
leaf scorpion fish, stargazers and the beautifully colourful Mandarin fish.
Shrimps and crabs galore including the very rare and hard to find boxer
crabs and bumblebee shrimps.
A few dives were dedicated to finding unusual opistobranchs (sea slugs)
and we saw vast amounts on this cruise, some of the rarest and most beautiful
being the Spanish dancers and the even bigger Djibouti giant, solar powered
slugs, the cannibal N. tigris, the list of sea slugs is way too large
to go through in detail.
Night diving brought out lots of unusual critters like Bobbit worms, saron shrimps, night octopus, very unusual shells and sea slugs only ever seen out after sundown.
Big marine life was also seen; manta and giant reef rays,
turtles, reef sharks, large tuna Napoleon wrasse, bumphead parrotfish. The
scenic of course was outstanding with only one dive being blown by current,
not dangerous just a little too much for us to get to the best position
for the schooling fish life, there was still great scenery.
Topside we had the dragons though this was no usual dragon tour. Rangers
had found a dead deer that had been killed by wild boar but not eaten. What
we saw was 7 dragons going into a wild feeding frenzy. This is very rarely
seen as there is now a no feeding rule, though if something dies naturally
they eventually get eaten and we were lucky enough to be in the right place
at the right time. This was definitely not for the faint hearted. We were
so close in this wild environment that the rangers advised us to leave before
the dragons finished their feast. They apparently get a too feisty after
feeding like this!
The trip went so well, a few guests even booked straight away for another cruise, in another of Indonesia's great dive area's Alor.
Interested? Click here to inquire for more information!
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