Big sharks, small fish

After my diving instructor told me that Komodo is one of the most beautiful places in the world for diving, I couldn't pass up the opportunity and booked a boat trip with 3 dives on Thursday. I have to say, he wasn't exaggerating! In summary: beautiful colorful coral reefs, lots of sharks, turtles, octopuses, barracudas, and many other cool things. I also did my first drift dive. That's when you dive in a place with strong currents and you hardly move, just letting the current carry you. It really shows you how powerful the ocean is because even if you try to fight against it, you simply can't beat the current. All in all, these were definitely the most beautiful dives I've ever done!

On Monday, we decided not to do any more tours because our flight was at 6 AM. Instead, we rented a scooter and explored Labuan Bajo. Our first stop was a kind of canyon with a small waterfall. The pictures in the ads always look nice, but no one tells you what the path to get there looks like :D For example, the last 6 km to the destination were a mix of steep gravel road, extremely slippery dust, and even sharp rocks. Since we were in the middle of nowhere, all we could do was pray that we wouldn't get a flat tire. After a short hike through the jungle, we finally arrived and even had the whole canyon to ourselves.

Our second stop was the Rangko Cave. We had no idea how to get there and relied on Google Maps as usual. Just before arriving, someone intercepted us and said he would take us to the cave because you can only reach it by boat. Shortly after, we found ourselves in a small, litter-filled fishing village. We wanted to know how much it would cost and how long it would take because we had to be back at the airport by 4 PM, but the problem was that none of them spoke a word of English. It was a bit suspicious, but after a while, we found someone we could explain to about what time we needed to be back. He explained it to our captain, and off we went - in a tiny, old boat that you can already tell from a distance would sink if a wave over 30 cm came. But no risk, no fun :D Once again, we were alone there, and the sight took our breath away.

When we wanted to go back, all the boats were there - except ours. We tried to explain with gestures and broken language that we needed to go back immediately because we had a flight to catch, but nobody was stressed about it. After waiting for half an hour, our captain finally arrived and took us back, all the while maintaining a very relaxed attitude.

After a 2-hour flight delay and a 2.5-hour scooter ride, I was back in my project in Bali.

On Wednesday evening, we did a night dive at the US Liberty shipwreck in Tulamben. There was quite a bit going on down there, even at night, but apart from some big grouper fish, lionfish, and crabs, there wasn't much to see. The most spectacular sight was when we surfaced! We all surfaced and suddenly saw that Mount Agung (about 15 km away) had erupted and now a lot of forest was burning. But it was just a small eruption, so nothing dangerous.

Since we couldn't dive this week because the waves were too high, we took a trip to a famous temple nearby.

Originally, I wanted to climb a higher volcano this weekend, but the people from my project convinced me to go with them to a party island.

Let's see how it goes :)

Martin