Komodo diving from a liveaboard, our dream come true!

Diving Komodo from a liveaboard is the perfect way to get the best of the National Marine Park. Komodo belongs to the Coral Triangle and is one of the most famous and finest diving destinations in Indonesia with over one thousand species of fish and 250 coral species. To get the greatest experience of what Komodo has to offer, the best option is to book a dive trip on a liveaboard.

In this post I am going to tell you why we particularly enjoyed Komodo diving from a liveaboard.

 

Where to board?

There are a few options regarding where to start your holidays. The most convenient one is to begin in Labuan Bajo, Flores island, as it is right next to the Komodo National Park. That means you have a shorter boat ride to reach Komodo’s dive sites than from any other part of Indonesia. 

Bali, Gili Islands and Lombok are other locations where liveaboards begin but they are further west from Komodo. Some companies do round trips (start and end at the same place). Others have routes starting and ending on a different island. 

Komodo National Park is composed of three major islands: Komodo, Padar and Rinca, but many other smaller ones are further added to it with a total of 1,700km2. 

 

Our liveaboard choice for diving Komodo

From 3 up to 14 days, from 3 to 11 cabins vessel, budget or luxury, you will find the liveaboard that matches your expectations. 

Dive into Life chose the new WISESA which has 2 dive guides and 6 crew members!

This vessel, also called a phinisi, is the traditional Indonesian wooden boat with one or two masts. The WISESA is 30 meters long, has 4 cabins and can accommodate up to 8 guests. The rooms are cosy and stylish. It was inaugurated in 2016 in Indonesia. Between dives you can enjoy the sun deck to relax, get tanned or simply admire the volcanic islands surrounding you.

One interesting fact about WISESA is that it offers snorkeling and surf trips all around Indonesia apart from diving cruises!

Check out prices and availability

 

Route, seasons and diving conditions in Komodo

We were onboard WISESA in the beginning of September 2019 for 7 nights and took the famous Komodo route starting in Labuan Bajo. We chose going there during the dry season which is from March to October as it provides the best diving conditions.

The rainy season (monsoon) begins in November and ends in March. Conditions at sea can sometimes be rough. However, the best visibility is in November, December and January when it can be up to 40 meters (130 ft).

The water temperature is all year round between 23°C and 28°C but can drop below 20°C in the southern part of Komodo. We recommend at least a 3mm full wetsuit and a hood on some sites. The air temperature ranges from 20°C (minimum in August) to 35°C (maximum in October).

 

Here I am sharing our day-by-day experience diving Komodo 

 

Day 1: Liveaboard, crew and Komodo Park introduction!

The staff picks us up at our hotel, located about 15 minutes away from the harbor, as we arrived in Flores a day before. If your flight landing time matches with the liveaboard departure time, then the staff will pick you up at the airport and head directly to the harbor. 

 

As soon as all the divers are on board, we head to Sebayor Kecil and Mini Wall for our first two dives on the same afternoon. On the way, the cruise director introduces the staff, gives us the boat briefing, explains to us the route he planned to follow, talks about the diving conditions and safety procedures before we have our first delicious lunch. 

Once we reach the first dive site of the week, we feel the excitement from all of us. This dive is easy as it is a check dive to ensure our gear works and our buoyancy is under control. We see a broadclub cuttlefish, a big school of blue striped snappers, a giant moray eel and hundreds of colourful corals! And most importantly, we all pass the check dive, so we’re all ready for the famous Komodo diving 😉

 

The second dive is a relaxing sunset dive. We spot a couple of nudibranchs, a flatworm, a Kuhl’s stingray, a ghost pipefish, a decorator crab and a few skeleton shrimps. 

 

Day 2: World-class dive site and stunning sunset on Mawan island

After our first night on the WISESA, we dive at Tatawa Besar followed by Batu Bolong, a world-class dive site. However, diving at Batu Bolong is not easy at all. Currents hit the pinnacle from almost every side. You can experience whirlpools, downflow and upflow. Sticking behind your guide is highly recommended to avoid being caught in the current. As a scuba diving instructor with years of experience in channel dives in the Maldives, where you experience some of the strongest currents on Earth, I can say without exaggeration the currents hitting this pinnacle are raving mad! 

 

In the afternoon we dive the well known Pink Beach also called Pantai Merah on Mawan Island, where we are blown away by a very strong current. We, I mean my princess and I with our guide, as the rest of the group is missing… We see a crocodile fish, lady bugs, a hawksbill turtle, 5 different species of nudibranch, a devil scorpionfish and a black ribbon eel. Then we go relax and play beach volleyball on Pink Beach and watch the sunset from the hills surrounding it. 

 

We end the day with a night muck dive in the bay around the corner. The critters are amazing! We see many tiny shrimps, decorator crabs, squat lobsters, a huge marbled stingray and a blue ringed octopus.

 

Day 3: A giant reef manta where we didn’t expect it 

Before our dive at Makassar reef, a manta point, the cruise director takes us to visit a local village. It is an interesting experience to walk in those pedestrian streets and see how the locals live, work and cook. In the afternoon, we dive the famous Cauldron aka Shotgun. This is a drift dive where we see  hundreds of big reef fish and a reef manta ray gliding effortlessly while we hold on to some rocks for dear life. Later we end the day with a night dive at Lawa Laut. This site is full of small crustaceans and gastropods.

 

Due to the strong current on most of the dive sites in Komodo, divers should have at least an Advanced Open Water certification or equivalent with experience in drift diving, negative water entry, buddy separation procedures and surface marker buoy use.

Komodo is also called “current city” and the name is pretty well deserved. Don’t neglect this aspect before booking your holiday and heading to Komodo because you might not be able to dive all the sites and you will not enjoy being shaken and kicked by the current.

Remember, you can’t dive 3 to 4 times a day at slack tides when there is significantly less current. An inexperienced diver will put at risk the group he or she dives with as it is very easy to get separated during the dive since the first second of the descent. Body position and using the reef and topography to get protected and minimise the impact of the current require experience. 

 

Day 4: Stunning rocky reefs and crazy drift dive!

This morning looks promising with Castle Rock and Crystal Rock coming up. The sites are shallow rocky reefs full of schooling fish, flourishing corals and reef sharks. Pelagic tunas, barracudas and giant trevallies can be seen too! In the afternoon we do a drift dive at the Golden Passage or Darat Passage North, a channel dive. After today we are officially in love with Komodo. Retrospectively, these were the best dive sites of the week.

 

Day 5: The guests are in power!

After diving on spectacular sites since the beginning, we all decide to repeat some of them today. As you might know, no two dives are the same, even at the same site. We choose to dive Crystal Rock, Castle Rock and Batu Bolong at different tides than the previous days. And we had a blast! 🙂

 

Day 6: The most glorious 360 degrees view from Padar island

Another point of interest in Komodo is Padar island and its world famous hike to the top of the hill to enjoy the panoramic view of the whole area! This outstanding bird’s eye view of the surrounding beaches is the signature photo of Komodo. It is well worth the trek!

 

After this beautiful experience we dive at one of the most impressive coral gardens I had the chance to dive on – Siaba Besar, also known as “Turtle City”. I have worked in many tropical countries from Central America to South East Asia by way of the Maldives and seen beautiful healthy reefs. This one is probably the most impressive one! On top of seeing around 15 turtles during the dive, we were so amazed by such a flourishing coral reef! 

The second site was another drift dive: Siaba Kecil. The current is so strong that we really have the feeling of flying at some point. It is like watching a movie on super fast-forward. At night we return to Siaba Besar. Because of the lack of natural light at night, most of the fish can’t really use their eyesight so they have to rely on other senses. Dive lights indirectly attract plankton and some fish that use them to hunt and feed. We became the best buddies of a few lionfish and trumpetfish, happy to use the free lighting to hunt and feed on small fish! 

 

Day 7: Love is in the water and Komodo Dragons are just big lizards 😉

The last day of our liveaboard trip ends with a muck dive at Wanilo followed by a wall dive at Pengah. Diving in Komodo is not really known for its muck dive sites but let me tell you that we are so impressed by our dive. We see so many amazing critters: Pikachu nudi having a threesome among so many other species of nudis, ribbon eels, ghost pipefish… For the record, observing nudis mating is common, but what we experience today is uncommon. I can’t really explained technically or I should say anatomically, how three nudis can mate all together at the same time. Check out the photo below and let us know your thoughts in the comments!

 

In the afternoon, we head to Rinca island for an exotic tour with the Dragons of Komodo. One of the main attractions of Komodo National Park other than the marine life are the dragons. This fascinating reptile can be found on Rinca where local rangers have made a sanctuary for those rare animals. They educate tourists about the behavior, reproduction, hatching and hunting techniques during an entertaining trek up the hills of the island.

 

For our last sunset, the WISESA picks a strategic location where we observe the endless daily migration of thousands of flying foxes. Those bats remains quiet during the day in a big mangrove. When the sun starts to set, the flying foxes, that’s how the species is called, wake up and head to the mainland to feed. We are just underneath the flying bats, staring at the sky as the migration unites thousands of members.

Our last dinner is also a great treat. The crew set up a private BBQ on an uninhabited island for us. We couldn’t have dreamt of a better last evening.

 

Day 8: Bye, bye Komodo. We’ll miss you WISESA!

We have our last breakfast onboard the WISESA, then pack all our scuba gear. It is already time to sail back to Labuan Bajo. The cruise director accompanies us and arranges a taxi for us to head to the airport. And it is time to say goodbye to this amazing area!

 

 

What to see and expect when diving in Komodo?

The waters in this part of Indonesia are full of life. You can see up to 7 species of sharks – black tip, white tip, grey reef, coral cat, nurse sharks, whale sharks and bamboo sharks. 

If you prefer rays, no worries, you will see many of them: spotted eagle rays, cownose ray, different species of stingrays like the blue-spotted ribbontail stingray and Kulh’s stingrays. Reef and oceanic manta rays are also part of the fiesta. For a higher chance of seeing them, it is best to dive in December, January and February.

 

Do you like turtles? Good, because you can dive with 5 species of them in Komodo: the green turtle, hawksbill turtle, olive ridley turtle, loggerhead turtle and leatherback turtle.

Schooling surgeonfish, bluefin trevallies, bigeye jacks, sweetlips among many others are common at dive sites like Castle Rock, Batu Bolong and Crystal Rock.

Imagine, you can spot 250 different species of corals: hard corals (mainly acropora); soft corals (gorgonians, dendronephthya…) and many sponges too. It is so dense!

 

For macro lovers, the list is long but here are some of the highlights: pygmy seahorses, lady bugs, skeleton shrimps, decorator crabs, bobtail squid, cuttlefish, blue ringed octopus, many species of nudibranch and flatworms.

The marine mammals which can be seen in Komodo include blue whale and sperm whale as well as 10 species of dolphins and dugong.

 

Photo and video cameras

If you are into underwater photography and videography, we recommend you to bring both wide angle and macro lenses as the biodiversity in Komodo is impressive! More than 1000 species of fish and around 250 species of corals. With the wide angle lens you can get stunning shots and videos of coral reefs covered by anthias and schooling fish. And you will be grateful for your macro lens to shoot the beautiful ghost pipefish, nudibranch, lady bugs and skeleton shrimps.

Komodo is definitely one of the best areas I have dived in. The coral reefs are so rich, dense and varied. The feeling of enjoyment is great when you see so many colours everywhere around you. Going to Komodo is not only about the diving. There is so much more to these volcanic islands than being underwater. We really enjoyed our daily excursions, which gave us endless entertainment.

 

We thank the superb crew of WISESA for the unforgettable week full of special moments. Our heads are full of vivid memories!

If you are already planning your Komodo diving trip, make sure you have everything you will or might need in this remote destination before going on a liveaboard.

You are a scatterbrain? No worries, we made a list for you of what to pack here!

 

Check out more liveaboards in Komodo

 

About the author

Nicolas Cesaroni has adopted scuba diving as his way of life since his first dive in 2010 in South-East Asia. A few months later he was a scuba Instructor, and a new life began. He decided to live his passion on a daily basis and explore as many tropical destinations as possible. He’s been diving and teaching scuba ever since in the best destinations in the world from Indonesia to Mexico by way of Thailand, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Seychelles, Egypt, Tanzania, South Africa, Greece, Germany, France, The Bahamas, Belize, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Panama.

He has become an avid underwater photographer over the years and his favourite critters are the tiny ones. You can find his stunning shots on his Instagram account @ocean.nico. In 2019, he took time out and co-founded the Dive into Life blog. The following year, having missed being underwater every day and living on remote islands, he was back in teaching status in the Maldives, where he is currently working.

When he is not underwater or editing pictures, Nico is a mixologist and he loves cooking.