We also visited several DIVE SITES in the Park
(no, no dragons in the sea).
The diving here has been spectacular! Large manta rays and sharks,
cuttlefish, stonefish and octopus down to the tiniest pygmy sea horses,
crabs, shrimp and nudibranch central.
There's all the unusual Pacific Ocean marine life,
and for the most part the reefs are in good health,
though they DYNAMITE FISH here and there's evidence of that,
and there is widespread CORAL BLEACHING.
We are doing four scheduled dives/day (32) of which I'll complete about 28.
I have been photographing the dive brief boards so that I can link
the dive site and photographs together as I send them to you.
There is a LOT Of CURRENT,
but mostly manageable with the exception that some people in my boat
do not keep up/in sight of the dive guide so those who do
have to grab on to anything thing they can and hang like a flag in the wind
and wait for them. (NO gloves or reef hooks allowed).
After two dives like that (not in the least enjoyable),
I decided to skip the early morning "current" dives and
just do the later-in-the-day and night dives which are in
calmer and shallower water.
I've had some equipment issues: The flash won't (flash).
Flooded and blew out one Video Light battery,
missing/lost a part of my BCD at arrival,
but was able to borrow a replacement from the boat at no cost.
I'm going to try to replace some of my gear here in Bali if I can,
rather than go to Maumere and find out the boat
does not have any Aqualung/US Divers gear.
We did four dives a day (some I skipped). Our average day:
6:30 a.m. - Continental Breakfast:
Coffee or Juice/water
Fresh chopped melons, usually with yogurt
UNTIL THEY RAN OUT ON DAY 8
Bakery - Croissants, breads, cereal with toaster and a toaster oven
Cheese or Jellies for the breads.
ORDER YOUR HOT BREAKFAST: eggs any style, bacon, ham,
pork sausage, noodles, French toast, pancakes
7:15 - Dive Briefing #1
Dive
Return to boat and have your hot breakfast
Surface interval/rest until . . .
10:30 - DIVE #2 Briefing - much like DIVE #1
Return to boat, surface interval and rest
Buffet lunch (serve yourself)
2:30 p.m. - DIVE #3 - see dives #1 & #2
Return to boat and SOME DAYS we had a shore excursion option.
6:15-ish p.m. (at sunset) - DIVE #4 (NIGHT DIVE),
usually at the same site as DIVE #3
Return to boat and DINNER - Three courses served.
IF you had an issue with the posted dinner, you could ask for alternates.
(BEFORE DINNER, Rob would outline the upcoming day for us.)
After-dinner chatter and BED BY 9 p.m. most nights.
NOW ON TO DIVING
The guests were divided up into three boats.
There are really only two tenders so the last group has a bit of a wait
while the first boat comes back to pick them up.
I was assigned to the Blue Boat.
Bob & Jean were a couple as were Peter & Sonya.
I was the odd man out, but it worked well as the dive guide
was my dive buddy for most of the dive.
When I got to the ship I found out that I had lost a piece of gear.
The AirSource inflator for my BCD.
Now the BCD can't be filled (or won't stay filled) with that piece missing.
Not to worry; the ship loaned me a replacement at no charge.
HOWEVER it was heavily-used gear and leaked a bit,
so my dives were almost always 20 minutes shorter than everyone else's.
I say almost always because on night dives at a much shallower depth,
the leak wasn't as noticeable as when you hit 70', 80' or deeper
and I could get the full 57 minute dive and a three-minute
safety stop for a total of 60 minutes.
All dives had a 60-minute maximum because doing repetitive dives
with a schedule you can't stay as long as you like (or are able)
as it puts everything else out of whack.
When my air reached a predetermined limit,
I just signaled the guide and started up to do my safety stop
and then I'd get picked up by one of the tenders.
Each day one group was first all day, and one group was last.
The groups rotated every day so that no one group
was always in the same sequence. The dive guides also rotated each day
so we all go to dive with different leaders.
You'll see that some people have AIR after their names.
We all have "air" but two-thirds of us dive
ENRICHED AIR or Nitrox.
Because bottom time can be longer when using Nitrox,
all the "air" users were put into one group.
THE FIRST DIVE SITE . . .
. . . was in Lohsera on a wreck called a phinisi, or pinisi;
this was a checkout dive so that we could all determine
how much lead (weight) we needed to carry to sink
our wet suits. It was a shallow dive of 60' max.
A pinisi featured in 100-rupiah banknote
Circular batfish (Platax orbicularis)
SECOND & THIRD DIVES
DIVE #2 was at Loserah; "The Alley" is a Manta Experience;
DOZENS OF THEM swimming and circling around and over us!
However the water was very green (plankton),
so no really good photos could be obtained. I shot some video,
but it's too big to send from here.
I did create some screen shots of the best frames.
It was SO MUCH CLEARER in person (your mind's eye
edits out all the low color and resolution).
Rob Morgan Grenville is the Cruise Director.
He is South African and has been on the boat for two years.
When it reaches port, his contract is up and he will bum around Bali
for a while waiting for his girlfriend to come out from New York.
Eventually he plans to go to Miami in the USA.
Rob is also a dive guide and all-round nice guy who
helped immensely with my equipment issue.
He also updates a map on the salon wall showing our travels.
This shows where we had traveled on DAY ONE and DAY TWO
I will photograph it daily to keep a record of our sailing.
Coral fishes, speculum butterfly fish, One-spot butterfly, spotted butterfly fish, mirror butterfly fish, oval-spotted Coral fish
(Chaetodon speculum)
Speckled moray or fine-spotted moray eel (Gymnothorax dovii)
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