Diving Northern Flores and Alor with Shakti
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A check out cruise. Friends had asked me to help out and join the Shakti acting as dive guide for their guests. It was an honour to go out on their maiden voyage, it was to be a great adventure.
At the airport in Bali I noticed two divers I had dived with a year or so earlier while on another dive boat. These were a great couple, mad keen about marine life and like myself having a passion for critters. We boarded Shakti in Labuan Bajo, northern Flores.
The first day of cruising was within the Komodo National Park where we dived a few sites, manta ray, turtles feeding, great fish life, reef scenery and later on we had some good Mandarin fish action too! Cruising overnight heading on our journey east, our first stop the next day was in Riung. We searched for our first dive, taking a quick look at a few potential sites, one stood out as a good critter dive. On a quick check I noticed a goby I had not seen before, that can make a dive in itself! A quick check, the ID books revealed nothing similar. It was well worth going back to see it again. During the dive we also saw about 7 different twin spot gobies, most in pairs doing the strange almost animated movements. There were emperor shrimps on leopard sea cucumber, shrimps on mushroom corals, and a few nudibranchs too.
Our next stop was on a small island off the northern coast of Flores, we found excellent coral life with big sea fans, giant sponges and a deep wall with amazing coral scenery. Masses of fusiliers were flitting around all over the reef, we saw turtles, a few large dogtooth tuna and had a great reef top for our safety stop as well. It was getting late, time to look for a night dive on the black sand, upon a quick check it seemed to have all the right ingredients for a wicked critter dive. Sure enough on entry there was a very strange nudibranch I had not seen before, then another, then bobtail squid, golden coloured ornate ghost pipefish, a few small octopus, pigmy cuttlefish, lots more strange nudibranchs, it was a perfect night dive and most of all the guests were over the moon with joy.
Another island on the northern shores of Flores, this was really was a hit and miss, checking one area revealing nothing but rubble fields. We had expected this as other operators have only spoken of damaged reef on the north of Flores. I would have been happy with something where there might be a few critters. We headed over to an area that Joe noticed looked different in the water colour, we came across a pristine, shallow, hard coral reef. Checking it out we found a ridge coming from the main reef, further over a pristine wall too. This seemed perfect, great fish life and perfect visibility. A quick briefing on what to expect, conditions etc and off we went, first a wicked cavernous wall down to about 45m 145'. Great coral life with whip bushes, sea fans and soft corals with many small fish flitting around them. A large school of long fin banner fish seemed to want to follow us for nearly the whole dive along with a large green jobfish.... this was until looking up I saw something big closing in on us, wow I thought wow it's a Mola-Mola, just then I saw the tail as it got closer, wow I was just ecstatic, this was my first ever whale shark encounter. I had been waiting for this for a very very long time, after working on the Ningaloo reef for over 9 months and not seeing one, I feel I deserved this very special encounter. This was exactly how I had wanted to encounter this big fish and in great company too, it is all on video too! Our night dive was in a small bay. The boat stood by while we proceeded with another great night dive, the wall here was surprisingly good considering the location. It was loaded with great crustaceans and fairly good coral life too. On the shallow reef top we saw ghost pipefish, red crocodile snake eel, and again more bobtail squid.
We awoke to the scenery of Alor and it islands, we neared the village, asked permission and tied the boat up. The dives throughout here are very scenic with excellent coral filled walls with schooling fusiliers galore, some larger pelagic fish and a few reef sharks too. Kal's Dream really did put on a show for us, as far as big fish go we saw some very large yellow tail barracuda, about 10 or 12 big grey reef sharks, lots of schooling jacks, other schooling fish but is was the tuna that stole the show here. They came in huge schools with the biggest leading the school, the big tuna here even made the grey reef sharks look small. We all agreed we Lived The Dream!
Other dives here were just as good, Clown Valley with a never ending garden of anemones is always a very impressive site to see, some of the cavern pocked walls were great for there amazing scenery and small fish life. The great critter dives here were also excellent, we came across lots of different ghost pipe fish, many different opistobranchs including many Spanish dancers on most night dives, leaf scorpion fish in lots of different colours, pigmy cuttlefish out feeding too! In the shallows a boxer crab was seen hiding under a large rock, he was little too skittish and went into hiding quickly. A few sites in Alor are great for Mandarin fish action, we often came across them even in the early afternoon. Some great black sand diving on both Alor and Pantar that are home to so many great critters you will have to wait to see what it is all about. The French chef, Jerome was feeding us with food the likes of which I have never had before on any live aboard or dive holiday. We made sure he got in some quality dives too, he came across a large thresher shark, we too came across one on my favourite wall dive, giant reef rays were also seen along with some large pigmy sea horses and a wonderful shallow reef filled with anthias.
On the way back towards Maumere, central Flores we checked out a few more places and lucked out a number of times. One site was instantly named the Netted Wall as an old fishing net had been caught over an area of reef creating a new ecosystem for invertebrates. Lots of new marine life on the net along with an excellent wall from 18m/60depth it has many great caverns with more great marine life. Our night dive hear was outstanding with nudibranchs galore, lots of colourful crustaceans and the reef top was alive with sand dwelling critters galore. The bay of Maumere and the islands hit by the tsunami of December 1992, I did not really have high hopes, though the dives we came across were excellent, some great coral garden reef tops, outstanding walls though not too much in the way of fish life. We still came across a few black tip sharks, eagle rays, the smaller fish life was excellent with gobies, blennies, triplefins, dottybacks to name but a few. The plucked chicken pigmy sea horse was seen on a few walls along with cowrie shells sharing the same sea fans. We tried out some muck dives in the bay too, best at night with more ghost pipefish, bobtail squids, palamonid shrimps, more great opistobranchs including the Spanish dancer, many pleurobranchs and crustaceans making a great dive.
Conclusion -in all, the dive trip from Flores to Alor makes for an excellent critter cruise with many awesome scenic wall dives, excellent coral gardens and a few land tours to visit the locals and take a hot water spa on the beach too.
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