The Komodo Islands

From manta rays to mythical dragons.

Text and Photos by Sandy Sondrol

It was a big manta, one of four that had been flying large circles around us from the moment we entered the water.  Angling for a close-up, I hunkered down in a valley of the lava field just behind the rest of the group, made some final adjustments to my camera and crossed my fingers. As if on cue, the manta swooped in right over the top of me, not even two meters away.

It was one of those perfect dive moments, but only one of many during a 10-day trip through Indonesia’s Komodo Islands. Our group of 15 divers, organized by Scuba Travel Ventures, had left Los Angeles and made the trip across the Pacific to dive on P. Siren, the newest boat in the World Wide Dive and Sail fleet. None of us had dived with this company previously, and it was a great experience. The boat is built from local ironwood, in a traditional Indonesian boat yard.  It is beautifully finished, with polished mahogany throughout the boat and smooth teak decks.  The crew, under the guidance of owner-on-board Frank Van Der Linde, was most attentive and well trained, the food was great and the pace of the trip was relaxing.

Through the course of the cruise, we experienced non-stop diving diversity. The north end of Komodo, at the beginning and end of the trip, featured warm water, 28 degrees Celsius, that was green with plankton and filled with all of the associated filter feeders and macro photographic opportunities of Indonesian muck diving.  Then, as we moved further south, the water became cooler and more blue. Drift diving on powerful currents became the norm, and they carried us past submerged volcanic pinnacles swarmed by schooling jacks and masses of reef fish. During an early morning dive at Cannibal Rock, we came across several white tip reef sharks that appeared to be very pregnant.

For me, the most extreme and exhilarating dive of the trip was a site called Roller Coaster.  As we dived along a wall leading to a point, two currents crashed together.  We were told that at times there was a whirlpool on the surface, but at 30 meters, we sped along the wall, as fast as I have ever gone underwater. Right at the point, I was rolled over and over at least three times before coming out on the other side of the point and eventually into calmer, slow moving water. Then, as we moved into the shallower flat, just inside of the lip of the wall, one of the other divers motioned me over to see a small sea snake, the first that I had ever seen. It was methodically hunting under rocks and overhangs, and was uninterested in the three of us who were quite close, watching.

Moving north again, we did a dive at Circus. It gets its name from the numbers of lion fish that are around the site, but here is also the place that several divers found a mimic octopus. On a flat, near the edge of the dive area, my dive buddy, Bill Sarro, found a large mantis shrimp, completely out of its den. Later, during the twilight dive, one of the dive guides called me over and pointed out a lion fish. I thought that a bit strange, since we had seen several on most dives. I began photographing it, and then, after taking several pictures of the lion fish, realized that the big lump of sponge next to the lion fish really wasn’t sponge, but a huge peach colored frog fish. Its camouflage was so good that I was swimming all around it and almost missed it completely.

In addition to the spectacular diving, another experience not to be missed is Komodo National Park. This World Heritage Site is home to several of the famous Komodo Dragons. These very large lizards, endemic only to the islands, are carnivores, and stories of them stalking humans are common. We met two guides who led us on a hike through the park. We found several dragons during the trek, and the guides used long sticks to fend off any lizards that ventured too close to our group. 

Clearly, the dragons are used to being the apex predator on their island home, a point that was vividly reinforced the following day. P. Siren was moored close to a beach where we would occasionally see two of the giant lizards sunning themselves. During a surface interval, several of us piled into the RIB for a unique photo opportunity. Two of our group planted housed video cameras on the sand where Frank threw some cut-up chicken before quickly pulling the RIB just off the beach.

Before long, both of the dragons appeared. Ignoring us and the cameras, they devoured the chicken and from the safety of the RIB we got to see it all, up-close and personal. When the coast was clear again, we retrieved the video cameras and the footage, viewed in P. Siren’s salon that evening, fascinated all aboard.

Without a doubt, I will go back to Komodo. The diving was certainly the most diverse that I have ever experienced, and I am quite sure that I have only scratched the surface of what is possible in this mecca of underwater diversity.

For a complete Komodo image gallery: www.sandysondrol.com.

For more information: www.scubatravelventures.com or  www.worldwidediveandsail.com.

Author Bio

Raised beside a lake in Iowa, Sandy Sondrol grew up a self-described “water rat,” and made his first dives in the mid-1960s. In 1994, he left his law practice and moved to Grand Cayman to become a dive instructor and boat captain for Bob Soto’s. After nearly 10 years in Cayman, it was back to the states to join Nekton live-aboards for three years. He later became the associate publisher of Dive Chronicles, and today works as a full-time freelance writer and photographer.