Maumere, Flores - Komodo - Lombok with a National Geographic Photographic shoot.
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Photo gallery coming soon...
The cat is out of the bag see National Geographic in May 2005 issue on page 86 - 109 to read about why colours are so brilliant underwater!
Click here to read more and see just a few of their images on the National Geographic website
Click here to read their comments!
30th June - 10th July Maumere to Lombok
It was good friend from Operation Wallacea days, Zafer Kizilkaya that had
recommended me to his good friend and National Geographic freelance photographer
Tim Laman. Tim & I had been mailing for over 6 months regarding this trip, with
interest in diving Wakatobi, Bali and Komodo for a special hush hush story. The
Wakatobi portion was already arranged we needed to work on arrangements for the
most suitable itineraries in Bali and the best of Komodo region. I was kind of
gutted as I was unable to these guys diving in Bali myself due to another
charter. Good thing is I had a great local guide to take over and show them what
they needed and a little more too... For Komodo I made the most suitable option and chartered Ikan Gurami
for this had the most suitable tender boat and safety equipment aboard.
With a 15 day checkout cruise in advance of this to ensure the crew knew how to
handle this kind of group and truly make sure the systems would be suitable. I
was very confident it would go well!
It was evident from the day I met these guys that this would be no normal dive
trip, if anyone has met the marine life expert Les Kaufman you will know what I
mean. With Les's wild of sense of humour along it would surely be a fun trip
too. Tim and Zafer gave their full dedication to the photographic side of this
trip while Les had his expertise in the identification, natural history,
behavioral aspects of the marine life and more.
Our first day was slowed down a touch by local airlines, our plane being
redirected to drop off 3/4 of a plane load of new police students on their way
back from academy. We dropped them off in Kupang, west Timor and were in Maumere
with enough time to set up all our dive gear, have a fine dinner, relax on the
boat and make a late night dive to suit the tide that would hopefully bring in
some great critters.
Our first dive - dropping in we instantly came across a robust ghost
pipefish, then a small octopus. Like every site this has a hot spot and after a
short while we hit this spot.... another ghost pipefish, more octopus
species.... both long armed and veined. Huge emperor shrimps taking rides on
lumpy sea cucumbers and then came the biggies, hairy frogfish along with another
species we were not able to ID as Les sat this dive out - doh! Then right next
to these I noticed what looked like the head of a juvenile mimic octopus, sure
enough it came out of the hole and displayed a great show for Tim, Zafer & I.
Then even more… right in the same area only maybe a couple of meters away
another robust ghost pipefish... I was hoping the rest of the trip would go so
well as this first dive....
We spoke more about their exact list of target animals, after this I could
more accurately put them on the best site in search of certain animals that will
go towards their article to be published in the near
future. A regular dive site in the bay of Maumere was where we found a great
spot for a group of these target animals, they were all very surprised at the
health of the reef. Tim had brought along "that" Indonesia guide book,
mentioning Maumere as being very average. It was so good we dived this site 3
times then moved on to dive a night dive I thought would be great for more
target critters.... not so, in fact we had to abort it. The weather had picked
up, now the bay was a mess of stirred up silty water making photography next to
useless, never the less we had a very productive day.
Next day we woke on a small island north of Flores, great reef scenes though we
had target species to find. We had found a suitable area and dived this all day,
then had to move on for a long overnight cruise into western Flores.
As a result of a slight problem we never got to our planned destination of
Sebolan Island, instead we ended up in a small bay north of Flores. There is
usually some good that comes out of these little discrepancies in planned trips.
For our first dive I asked the locals to pick us as a spot of reef they knew.
I know there are many areas on northern Flores have been impacted and this was one of
them, though still we were able to find enough animals to photograph that would
help with the story, though I knew there had to be a few of their targets here,
it was a great environment… The guys ate lunch while I went in search; this is
what makes diving fun, especially when there is a list of critters to go
searching for. After checking a few spots, I came across one where I noticed a
few mandarin fish and animals
I thought may help the story. The environment looked good for other target
animals too. Starting the dive we dropped down to look for the mandarin fish, it
was a little early and even though we saw them, they were too shy to photograph.
After about 30 minutes with a few interesting fish and crustaceans, I eventually
came across a real winner. This had been overlooked on their list, as soon as I
saw it I knew it was a fish that would probably play a huge part in the story,
sure enough they worked on this fish for the rest of the dive with all cameras
firing away with different lenses. It was so productive we went back for a night
dive and had a really awesome dive with lots of animals they had wanted to
shoot, something good came out of our little problem after all, in fact we had
gained rather than loosing anything.
Next day we were back to were we had planned, into Padar for some upwelling
reefs with colder water diving. We really did luck out and had great visibility
in the south; usually it can get less than 7m visibility though we had up to 20m
on a few dives. Target animals were a plenty here, the usual nudibranchs were
out in full glory, making love, feeding, laying eggs and just wandering over
gorgeous backgrounds. Even the wide angle lens came out to shoot the incredibly
colourful reef scenes. We headed into Komodo for our night dive on Pantai Merah
(Red Beach). More target animals including the classic rare animals divers love
to see in this area were seen.
In the morning we had our dragon walk with plenty of dragons around the ranger
station, being with these guys, especially Tim & Les with their vast knowledge
of bird life made it all the more interesting. Other than the usual dragons, we
saw plenty of birds including one I had never noticed before.
Our night dive was so good we decided to dive Pantai Merah again, we found more
of what we had targeted. Next stop was Rinca where I knew these guys would go
berserk; we had really clear water here which was a very pleasant surprise. Sure
enough the guys were overwhelmed by what they saw here. We only dived a few of
the best sites that would suit their targets rather than trying them all. I knew
there were resident giant frogfish on Cannibal Rock, with enough searching I
eventually found a big one! What they never expected to see was "The real
cannibal of Cannibal Rock", the Roboastra luteolineolata or "Tiger Nudi". This
sea slug is a truly veracious predator that eats not just other sea slugs but
they even eat there own kind too! Cannibal Rock was good so good to us Tim
decided to shoot wide angle shots at a few chosen spots too. We chose the best
time with some current to open out all the corals in the best spot to fully
reveal the outstanding scenery on this incredible site! The night was another
big winner, more frogfish and more target animals along with many animals they
had never seen before, which is always good for any keen diver.
Another highlight in Horseshoe Bay was a 4 meter whale shark that circled the
boat feeding for over an hour. We never managed to get close enough to see it
well enough underwater as it was moving so fast while feeding towards the
surface. The water seemed to be very rich here today; we even had a bunch of
mobula rays jumping too!
We sat down in the evening to go over more options for the next few days and
what target animals were left on their list of things that would work well in
the story. One of these was something I hadn't seen for a long while in this
region though I knew a spot where I was hoping to see them. After more diving in
Padar we were back in the warmer waters of north Komodo to a site looking a
particular animal high on their list. This was no usual dive site with great
reef or lots of fish; it was a specific place to find a certain fish and
hopefully a few others too! Sure enough we lucked out and after about 20 minutes
searching I came across a few, these were very small and shy juveniles, maybe
even better for photography as they show their colours more than when fully
grown. Then later while ascending I came across more, these were less shy, more
photo friendly adults. Moving on to Banta to a famed night diving site, even
though some of the highlights on this site were not so appropriate to the story
I knew they had to dive here just to see all the great highlights
that this site offers, in less than 5 minutes we had our first stargazer then
more and more. It was a good time of the evening and moon, so good we managed to
come across a few juvenile stargazers too. It turned out to be great for a few
animals that were actually on their list, and a more critters they had never
seen before too!
Next morning armed with wide angle and 60mm macro lenses we were going in search
of more giant frogfish.... always any photographer’s top animal to photograph,
these I suppose can always fit into any story. Sure enough within a few
minutes strobes were being adjusted to shoot a giant frogfish set amongst a
backdrop of glassy sweepers, then another on a huge elephant’s ear sponge. Les
managed to get a few big fish to add to his fish count for the trip with a few
different species of sharks he had yet to see out here as well.
Another quick cruise over lunch and we were at Sangaeng another area I knew
would blow them away, with less than 3 minutes into the dive there was a tiny
juvenile clown frogfish and then another fish which was one of the top ones on
their list. Then the fish they were after seemed to be popping up everywhere, we
saw them in mated pairs with some really bizarre behaviour between what seemed
to be a male and pregnant female. A few dives in this area went so well we
headed off to another location for a great night dive site with excellent sea
slug action, as soon as we dropped in there was the bizarre Euselenops luciceps,
a really unusual swimming sea slug, then weird decorators and long armed crabs,
Spanish dancers and critters galore on the reef top too.
For our last day of diving we had one more target animal which was to be a
fairly easy one. Sure enough they were there, and plenty of them too, we even
came across a few more to add and an unexpected group of giant stone fish.
Conclusion - the guys managed to get all their target animals including a
few they had forgotten to add to their list. Les said he was in a writer’s
heaven as he sat in at the upper stateroom of the Ikan Gurami, saying his words
had
never flowed so well. And why not with the full surrounding view from
this, the most gorgeous cabin of any dive liveaboard out here!
With the exception of one really rocky crossing we had great conditions; we knew
this was a rough time of the year for this area anyway, so I thought we actually
made out much better than I’d hoped for. We had a lot of great laughs, and all
learnt lots more from each other. A new fact came from their trip too, Les
managed to make his highest ever fish count, you thought Gerry Allen had a high
count at 283 for Raja Ampat, Les managed to bag 301 different species in a
single dive on the Wakatobi House Reef. He has to transcribe the list from his
underwater slate, a part of which got rubbed out in his luggage (likely story!)
and then convince Gerry he really had 301, but even with that caveat he
apparently wasn’t really trying too hard either. We’ll have to take him to Irian
to see how he gets on there...
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