WONDERPUS

Liveaboard trip 9-18 Jun 2010

Bali - Komodo
INDONESIA

Mermaid I

The rarest of the rare, the elusive Wonderpus, decided to give us a little show this trip. After sitting in its hole for (quite) a while, eventually it trusted us enough to come out and perform. Which, if you are a Wonderpus, usually means running over the sand, waving the tentacles and flashing black and white colours. The Scandinavian jury voted 9.8, before this little cephalopod, only 10 cm across, took a time out.

Moving up the scale slightly, we enjoyed the company of four Dolphins while diving in the Komodo National Park itself. Keeping their distance, they swam around us a few times, obviously very curious about these clumsy, noisy things ruining their peaceful breakfast, before calling it quits.

The most impressive soft corals in Komodo can be found at Yellow Wall, in Horseshoe Bay. This vertical wall is absolutely stunning! Apart from the abundance of corals, sponges and crinoids, there’s also a lot of other marine life. We located a lovely juvenile Batfish, rare Nudibranchs and several Xeno Crabs.

No Komodo trip would be complete without paying a visit to the legendary Cannibal Rock. Famous for a good reason, with unbelievable marine life! We found Zebra Crabs, Coleman Shrimps, Leaf Scorpionfish, Pygmy Seahorses and a whole array of unusual Nudibranchs.

Nearby black sandy slopes are great for nightdives, and we had another great sighting – an undescribed, all orange, Octopus! Behaving exactly like a Mimic, it pretended to be 1) a soft coral, 2) a flounder and finally 3) something orange under a stone, before deciding that running away was a far better option. Good for us, and we got great pictures of it using two of its legs for the running bit, and the rest of them raised high trying to scare us off. Great show!

We thought we should get ourselves some descent Manta action, so Manta Alley in south Komodo seemed to be a good choice. And, lucky yet again, there they were; 15-20 of the big rays feeding, playing and getting cleaned. Two wonderful dives later, with memory cards and brains alike completely filled up, we started our way back to Bali.

PJ Widestrand

Video-Pro
Mermaid I

Liveaboard diving Thailand, Myanmar, Bali - Komodo and the Andaman Islands.