Diving Flores - Alor - Komodo with Dive Liveaboard Temukira
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August 22nd - September 6th
It is always a real treat to get back to diving areas of Indonesia where most live aboard boats and divers do not get to very often. The Alor region I have a great passion for, here we get to dive sites that are very rarely dived. The northern islands of Flores were also strongly in my mind as places I wanted to go back to, after a some quick exploratory I knew we would find some more great sites here. Also the children and locals that come to greet divers, it really is another one of Indonesias special places!
This was a join in cruise with Kris being the Cruise Director, I would act as a guide to a few good friends I had dived with a few times before, twisting Kris's arm now and then to dive a few sites I had in mind too. I had a group of veteran divers of Indonesia all with keen eyes waiting for some great critter action and beautiful scenic dives along the way too.
Day 1.
Maumere - Temukira was awaiting us, ready to board and head
off straight away, this way would get our check dive in ready for a full dive
day to come. Maumere has came back life after the tsunami of 1992 was said to
have destroyed
many great reefs. The reef we dived on Pangah Batang island was an good reef
slope heading down to an excellent coral garden of soft coral covered bommies
mixed with beds of sea fans, we didn't get to go over the crest reef as it was
only our check dive after all. Kris assured us it was as good, if better
than the area we were on. We immediately came upon a giant cuttlefish, later a few
small orang-utan crabs, blue ribbon eels, nudibranchs, lots of pipefish in the
shallower areas and 3 different species of mantis shrimp. A great start!
Day 2.
Pantar strait - Kris from Grand Komodo picked an
excellent entry point as we descended down a beautiful coral covered crevice.
Large sea fans, encrusting sponges and whips, many of these covered with magnificent
solitary anemones, a little deeper a giant grouper was seen briefly before it
darted into the safety of a crevice. On many of the ledges we saw the beautiful
purple elegant dart gobies, an unusual amount of colourful parrotfish cruised
the reef wall along with fusiliers, surgeons and unicorns with the odd giant
trevally, dogtooth tuna and a lone turtle cruising by off reef. An impressive
coral reef crest was home to some well hidden bubble coral shrimps, lots of
crabs defending off predators in the hard coral and Kris came across a juvenile
robust ghost pipefish on the reef top.
On entry to our next dive we saw a
large eagle ray slowly cruise by as we descended coming in really close for us all to easily
watch. Hiding in the reef we came across more orangutan crabs, coralimorph crabs
and some good juvenile fish life.
The original plan had been to head south of Pantar, weather was little
rough down south, instead we waited, heading to Reta island and Kalabahi for an easy
anchorage and our planned night dive. A world class wall dive on Reta
with lots of schooling fusiliers and surgeons, though this dive is best for its
scenery, a huge horizontal crack in the reef runs from 25m/80' to 10m/33' filled
with an excellent
variety of colourful invertebrates. In many areas gorgeous
brilliantly colourful soft corals cover the many small plateaus. As we ascended
a current picked up making for an excellent drift over the reef top, pristine
reef all the way with white sand between colourful coral bommies and hard coral
formations.
Our night dive in Kalabahi was as always great with some giant
flatworms, many small crustaceans, then we hit our best area when we came across
bobtail squid, Bob found a large warty frogfish sitting out in the open on the
sand, some really interesting nudibranchs including a phyllodesmium
unkown to our ID books.
Day 3.
Pura Island - here is
one of the most unique dive sites known, a site that covers at least 2
kilometers of reef filled with anemones and their host fishes. The area we dived
also has some giant coral filled boulders down deep with excellent scenery, here
we also saw a few huge dogtooth tuna, as we ascended a small sea snake meandered
its way over the anemone patches. The shallow area was best for fish life with
schools of drums and moorish idols. Another site on northern Pura has a great drop off
with a large overhanging reef, filled with daisy corals (tubastraea), looking close we saw wentletraps laying their eggs in the daisy corals. The reef
slope after the wall was where we came across a few great nudibranchs ceratasoma
and nembrothas, lots of small dragonets, ribbon eels and a great find of
the unusual orange and red legged hermit crab (ciliopagurus strigatus).
Our next dive and the night dive was in the same place and more for critters. We
came across a few nudibranchs, over 10 pleurobranchs, lots of decorator and
sponge crabs, 2 inimicus, a pair of janolus sea slugs unknown to our ID books and
a very strange mantis shrimp best described like a lysiosquilloides of
some kind, with its bizarre pointed eyes.
Day 4 & 5.
Pantar Island - a recent dive site found only last year, here we had schools of
yellow ribbon sweetlips, drums, snappers, moorish idols, fusiliers and unicorns.
A highlight of this site is the topography as we head over the top of some large
coral covered deep pinnacles, the tops at about 33m/110' and very dramatic
scenery with crystal clear water on this site. Heading over a mild
sloping reef we came to an area home to congregations of the bizarre zebra dart
goby we watched as the males displayed their colourful fins to the surrounding
group.
Next we headed in for some serious critter diving in South Pantar, here
we were not let down, in fact we had the most awesome, off the charts critter dives
possible. Of the critters we came across here; a few bugs bunny sea slugs (thecaera
pacifica), 6 different ghost pipefish of different colours and different
species, an unusual and unidentifiable red and black banded clingfish, ribbon
eels galore....
 "Diving Alor photograph")
Rhinopias eschmeyeri
The fairly uncommon snowflake or spotted soapfish (pogonoperca
punctata) that seems to be commonly seen on one site here. The highlight was
the creatures that come out from the black sand, one small area stands out from
the rest. Here we came across many different sawblade shrimps (tozeuma sp.),
2 different species of sea horse, thorny (H. histrix) and common (H.
kuda) including a brilliant orange individual. A few different tiny
pipefish, the oddest known to me being a bright red festucalex erythraeus?,
a cute little pipehorse (acentronura gracilissima) with it's tail wrapped
around a small peice of algae also showed up on a dive here as
well. A few different cockatoo waspfish and another unusual white
faced waspfish, this we thought may be a hypodytes rubripinnis? All this was
only really the icing on cake, the top critters on the dives here were the
resident weedy scorpionfish rhinopias eschmeyeri.
 "Diving Alor photograph")
Octopus sp.
Then to our thorough enjoyment a mimic octopus (The Wonderpuss) out in the open for all to see, eventually it went into a hole, only to be seen a few minutes later.... this time not alone it had brought along some back up, yes we had the joy of seeing 2 of these amazing creatures of great talent in front of us, displaying all there full glorious colours and patterns, yet there was more.... another species of mimic octopus, this time the species now known as the "white 'V' octopus". This species was doing the typical flounder like swimming, we managed to watch this for over 5 minutes as it moved over the substrate looking for a hole to hide in, or possibly food? Yet more to be seen as well, our final dive here at night brought us another bizarre critter - The Bobbit Worm (eunice aphroditois) though this was not as cooperative as any other creatures and we only managed to see its strange head with its menacing jaws and antennae level with the sand. This site has to be one of the best critter dives going?
Day 6.
Kalabahi - we had to re-fuel and Chris had a site where he had seen Rhinopias
frondosa before, this would be our dive site. A pretty coral reef slope
coming out of white sand had some good sea slugs, unfortunately no rhinopias to be found by very eager and keen critter eyes, though there was
a pair of giant frogfish, no one noticed the second till the digital photo's
were checked out later, many blue ribbon eels and a few scenic coral bommies
with plenty of sweepers.
Our next dive was not as planned due to a new pearl farm near Chris's great
macro site, we dived a reef slope instead and found some great nudibranchs including a
huge aerdeodoris egretta, halgerda sp., there were some really interesting
juvenile fish including a rare sighting of the juvenile sailfin snapper. A bus
had fallen from the road nearby creating a wreck with leaf scorpion fish making
this it's new home. Moving over to Ternate to an excellent wall dive, here we
found a rare yellow mouth moray and some interesting nudibranchs. Though this
site is best for the amazing topographical wall with all its cracks, crevices,
overhangs and ledges, all in fairly shallow depths too!
This time we missed the usual Jetty dive unfortunately, all the more reason to
head back here again!
Day 7 & 8.
Northern Flores - a site found while on an exploratory cruise last year with
friends and not dived since, this is where we had an awesome whale shark
encounter previously. A great wall dive to start, lots of small fish over
the reef crest with the same school of long-fin banner fish still there to greet
us. A few sharks cruised below us as we headed to the next section of this dive,
a sloping reef that spans out to kind of finger coming to a white sand patch
with coral bommies. Schools of fusiliers, damsels and anthias galore flitted
around this area. We headed up the reef finger to one of most expansive,
pristine, hard coral gardens imaginable here we saw a turtle cruise by and great
little juvenile rock-mover wrasse was seen in the very same place we saw one a
year earlier.
Moving on to another area where Kris had been diving before, I had checked out
the same area though thought it was all broken reef.
Sure enough the reef had been impacted, though from 20m/65' deep onwards an
amazing wall plunged down below us. With over 30m/100' visibility it was great,
huge black coral bushes, fans, crevices and gulleys lined the wall, however it
was all over soon as bottom time did not allow much more, the reef top, fairly
minimal though very nice in a few places.
Just a few hours further though was a
treasure of a site.... A small bay, good enough for a whole day of diving, for
it has the most incredible soft coral scenery with small ridges filled with a
whole array of different coloured soft corals. Like a perfect film, this scene too was
enhanced by the accompaniment of a score, just like music to your ears, vast
amounts of schooling bannerfish came in and stayed in this area till it was time
for us to move on to see what more was in store. There was more.... a mini wall,
again, more colourful corals and great scenery with some beautiful sea fans,
looking over a few pinnacles though a little too deep this far into the dive,
next time! The bay looked just like one of Bali's most famous area's - Tulamben
with the same looks and features. We did plan to dive in front of the dry river
bed, though we had seen so many critters we opted for this great mini wall reef
dive. It turned out to be an excellent decision as we came across lots of
unusual doto opistobranchs living amongst the hydroids, many beautiful
soft coral crabs, cowries, a tiny juvenile frogfish and skeleton shrimps on many
of the hydroids.
 "Diving Alor photograph")
Solenostomus leptosomus.
Northern Flores - a small Island I had dived before, Kris too had dived
here. I had only done 2 dives here before was
eager as could be to get back into the site we dived at night. It was truly a
winner, a real honey hole of a site, 2 dives and nearly 3 hours of bottom time,
all due to the deco friendly depths of the critters all over this small site. We
could have done at least 2 days here if we had an open itinerary. On
the 2 dives we counted over 18 different ghost pipefish of 3 different
species, mainly harlequin ghost pipefish in different colours, pairs -
some huge and with eggs, juveniles in different stages of growth and colouration,
a very rare halimeda ghost pipefish and 1 species I have only ever seen 1 pair of
before.... the velvet ghost pipefish I had never seen this many of these
beauties on 1 dive
site.
 "Diving Flores photograph")
Antennarius maculatus
)
Well, if we would have known for sure we would have made more time
somehow to stay longer so we could all see these little beauties, and, look for
more critters too! It really was a shame
to have to leave this area, though like Arnie says "I'll be back" and spending
much more time rummaging round in this precious little area so rarely dived!
En route it was possible to make a night though it would be total luck of the
draw dive. Heading in land towards Riung, we dived an area, which is fairly bombed
out, this never puts us off as Indonesia has creatures that thrive in areas like
this. A slow start with a few hydroid decorator crabs, then a beauty came out,
just like a save a dive kit.... a tiny juvenile pinnate batfish, only a few
centimeters long, mimicking what looks like a foul tasting flatworm. A crocodile
fish hid in the sand close by, then a huge jellyfish, one I have never seen
before, seemed to be swimming right at me, looking closer a few juvenile fish
could be seen making this animal their home till large enough to enter the open
ocean alone. A few more interesting decorator crabs and a sea slug I had never
seen, some kind of philinopsis. You really can make good night dives just about anywhere in
Asia and find new marine life.
Day 10.
Komodo National - we picked up another guest in Labuan Bajo, diving Sebolan
Kecil on the way. Here a beautiful reef with a lone plucked chicken pigmy sea
horse (H. denise) hiding in the branches of a sea fan. Huge beds of garden eels
(a few different species). A small school of barracuda and jacks went by as we
held our place in the mild current atop the beautiful coral covered sea mount,
with many other colourful reef fishes resident here. The reef top and slope
here, again healthy coral cover with lots of colourful soft corals as we slowly
drifted by, coming to the corner of the island the current stopped, here we
encountered a large cuttlefish, it was great to watch from a short distance, the
behaviour.... not of the cuttlefish, the divers.... all making gestures as
if talking to this intelligent animal. For sure we had a few laughs and jokes
about this strange behaviour back on the boat afterwards.
 "Diving Komodo photograph")
Ceratosoma/Miamira magnifica
We headed down to Padar for a dive on the famous pinnacles here. A favourite
site of a few good operators.... wow the water was chilly, with a low of 22ºC
with very clear visibility for this area. Here the coral life is outstanding, along with
the marine life. Lots of great opistobranchs, amazing invertebrate life, fish
galore and many interesting small crustaceans cover these dramatic pinnacles.
Day 11.
Horseshoe Bay, south Rinca was our next dive area for a black sand night
dive. Here we had a beautiful pair of golden coloured ghost pipefish, some
bizarre decorator crabs, plenty of great opistobranchs including marionia sp.
looking very like the soft octocorals near by, the regular kuthona kanga.
Many of the hydroid bushes here were filled with skeleton shrimps (caprellid
sp.),
this area is home to the biggest I have ever seen, many with small
babies attached to the larger specimens.
Temperatures here were very cold, down to 20ºC/67º though the water was very clear up
to 20m/65' visibility which for this area and this time of the year is very
good. The sites in this special place are great for it's vibrant soft coloured
soft coral and feather stars that are virtually everywhere and in places so
dense they almost fill every part of the reef with brilliant colours.
Day 12.
Padar Island -
heading north we dived in Padar, a small island just away from the main
island. Here there are great giant coral covered pinnacles that tower up from
the sea bed, swim-throughs
that make this area special for the most outstanding reef scenery in here. Lots of huge angelfish and
a few opistobranchs too, the beautiful ceratsoma magnifica being the
prettiest. After only diving this a few sites
before and not knowing fully whether it was always so good - it now becomes
another one of my favourite dive sites.
Next stop some was diving amongst some great coral reef scenery and Tetawa
Besar was our dive. Here we had the usual great reef scenery with plenty of
batfish, a large Napoleon wrasse, giant moray sharing the same home with a
beautiful barramundi cod.
Tetawa Kecil, being just after the full moon
we had the full ripping currents and were only able to dive one small area. We had good fish life, a turtle with not a care in the world for the
divers around it, the great shallow hard corals as usual with thousands of small
anthias and damsels flitting above them.
Our night dive on the sandy slope of Red Beach was also a great one for
interesting marine life. The first great critter was yet another ghost pipefish,
this time a delicate (solenostromus leptosomus), then a few different
opistobranchs the most unusual being - marionia viridescens.
Day 13.
Komodo Dragons
- the group of divers with me had been here and seen the dragons numerous
times before, so we opted for a dive instead. I had briefly looked at a site in the bay here, a small sea mount with vast amounts of sea cucumbers all
over it. Here a fairly boring looking landscape never put us off in the least.
This is what we love most, searching for odd little critters hiding in
these alternative environment dive sites. A great dive too, with
some cool opistobranchs, cuttlefish, mantis shrimps, then Chuck a keen eyed
critter lover saw an odd looking piece of what looked like algae move, this
was a juvenile of the delicate ghost pipefish Solenostromus leptosomus.
While on the reef top looking at a mantis shrimp a small manta ray went by, we all watched
as it close up as it graciously glided through the
water and on past us, this was an excellent end to another great dive.
Batu Bolong was the next dive, current ripping around this tiny rock of an
island, again the new moon phase bringing with it very strong
currents. A few careful divers wisely chose to skip this dive as it is not
really good for people who prefer not to swim against currents that can be
dangerous if not careful! The dive was indeed more of a sport dive than any I
usually do, often kicking against the changing current to keep in the safe zone.
We saw a few white tip reef sharks, a huge Napoleon wrasse, a few big tuna,
giant trevallies and many schooling fish with lots of small schooling fish in
the shallows above a great colourful coral backdrop.
Gili Lawa Darat - a night dive with Spanish dancer and plenty of other
opistobranchs, lots of xeno crabs in the small sea fans and spider crabs galore.
Day 14.
Gili Lawa
- Castle Rock otherwise known as HTF Rock, a few white tip reef
sharks, schooling fish like longfin bannerfish, surgeons fusiliers, jacks, a few
batfish were hanging out here. The highlight this time here was the pair of cuttlefish that let
each diver, photographer and videographer in close with their gear to film these amazingly intelligent animals, I
sat back and watched the diver
interaction going on here, it's kind of like who is watching who?
Crystal Bommie - another great dive for it's fish life, heading over the to the
small sea mounts just away from the main rock. We swam across and held our
position in the current watching the unicorns, snappers, sweetlips, triggerfish all being
cleaned in this area, kind of like a drive through car wash on a busy day! Over
on the main reef lots of scorpion fish were doing their best to avoid being seen
and a few different nudibranch were seen. The highlight here was the octopus, about 3 different
individuals were seen out of their usual homes. We watched as one big octopus came out
feeding. It was very unusual to see as it was being closely followed by about 8
goatfish all feeding away at the scraps or small marine life fleeing the arms of
the octopus as it went hunting in the crevices of the rock face.
Lighthouse Corner - another favourite site for me as this often comes with
surprise biggies. All the corals were out in bloom and the reef slope had plenty
of fish hanging around as we drifted by in the mild current. The corner here is
great for the rock formations and corals that grow in between. On dives like
this with low current it's great to check out the scenery and watch the batfish
being cleaned. Just as we were ascending I turned to see a huge beautifully
patterned manta ray, lots of white coloured patterns on it's back ahhh.... we
watched it glided by with Bob trying his utmost to get this beauty on video. At
the current side of the bommie we watched as a large school of batfish
held still while Bob captured it all on video. A little too much current against
us to head over a beautiful coral bommie. Bob and Jayne ascended so I took CJ
into the current so I could show her a favourite coral bommie on this site. Here hundreds of glassy sweepers
sweep their way through a coral covered hole in this great bommie, always
pleased to see as the old leaf scorpion fish was still making this rock it's
home.
Batu Moncho - night diving here on a sandy slope we found the usual stargazer,
some large decorated spider crabs and shrimps on many soft coral and under
overhanging coral rocks. Twin spot lion fish always creating frustration for
photographers or videographers as they hide away shy of the bright lights. Out
in the open sand a few different slashing mantis shrimps, small opistobranchs
and 2 nassa mud snails with such a beautiful coloured foot.
Day 15.
North Komodo
- Toro Monco, a beautiful dive, conditions made it so we couldn't hang
around to appreciate the full effect of the gorgeous soft coral wall and
crevices. We managed to hang around long to check out the shear beauty of the
scenery here. As we drifted over the pristine hard coral garden we all watched once
more a manta ray graciously went by, making a close sideways flyby so
photographers and videographers could get what they wanted. More cuttlefish were
seen by a few divers and a huge crocodile fish resting within the soft corals
made for a great subject, even Chuck's macro framer didn't put this fish off.
 "Diving Banta photograph")
Solenostromus paradoxus
Moving over to west Banta, once more with Kris allowing us to opt out where we could of the current dive he had planned. Once more we had excellent critters, starting with a few resident bargibants pigmy sea horses, more leaf scorpion fish, a giant stonefish, a pair of many banded pipefish, 1 with eggs. Many small shrimps and then Sebastian coming up trumps finding a great Pegasus sea moth, as they are usually seen in pairs, we searched for another, sure enough Sebastian, Temukira's other great dive guide found the other close by, making up the pair. A sea snake was also slowly mooching around the reef top.
We moved to a place in the middle of Banta for our night dive, a few marionia opistobranchs and a great leander plumosus, a stargazer was seen along with lots of great crustaceans usually seen on these great reefs.
Day 16.
South Banta - our last day of diving, we dived Ghalley Rocks, here we came
across nudibranchs, lots of moray eels, scorpionfish galore and an excellent
hard coral garden with scattered coral bommies.
Moving slightly further south to dive a small rock that barely surfaces. Here we
were looking for big fish, though the dive turned out much better for it's
variety of opistobranchs, we saw a fairly uncommon species maybe the nembrotha
guttata, there were a few different bornella anguilla ?, a
beautifully patterned halgerda I couldn't make a positive ID on and a
few others too. An unusual kind of humpback scorpionfish taking a close look at
it's fins probably the S.gibbosa.
Conclusion
Such amazing critter diving all in one cruise with many great scenic dives along
the way. This for sure
Flores - Alor is an excellent alternative to Komodo, Rinca has great dives,
Pantar this time was off the charts and has been better with each visit. Hopefully
this will lessen the impact on the Komodo area as more and more boats head that
way. Hopefully some more live aboard
vessels will be able to head over and dive Alor as well.
The boat - the guests I had on board have been diving Indonesia many
times prior to this cruise on a variety of boats. They all really enjoyed the
boat, not as luxurious as many, though the crew make up for the missing luxuries. The crew
on this boat, all personally helped with the re-fitted of this boat for diving and have been with the her since.
It certainly shows in the way they work the boat, it is easily noticeable that they are so
pride to have this as their own diving vessel.
Grand Komodo Tours - always an excellent job of taking care of guests
from arrival till departure, guests are met and escorted by their helpful staff
all the way.
Click here to go direct to the Testimony page to read comments from the guests who joined with Diving 4 Images.
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