Komodo National Park: In search of diving, not dragons

Jock Paul, Contributor, Labuanbajo, Flores

"People come here for the dragons but they stay for the diving."

I hear the comment over and over from locals during my five days in Labuanbajo, a quiet fishing town on the west coast of Flores from which dive operators access the Komodo National Park.

A combination of natural and enforced protection and cold, nutrient-rich water has created a marine environment in the Komodo National Park that is teeming with fish and marine life --and has become a haven for divers.

The stark contrast between the rich marine life below the surface and the parched and rugged landscape of the Komodo National Park is immediately apparent on my first dive. Batu Bolong, northeast of the island of Komodo, is a large exposed rock surrounded by strong currents, with empty barren islands scattered in different directions a few kilometers away.

Underwater the difference is paralyzing. There is literally too much to see. School after school of different sized colorful fish swim slowly by. In over 20 meters of visibility, I see turtles, a white tip shark, an eagle ray, two moray eels, and thousands of fish and a variety of colors I have never seen before. The coral is spectacular and in perfect shape.

The sea around Komodo is unique in the world in that it has two distinct marine habitats -- tropical and temperate -- a few nautical miles from each other. Here the warm tropical waters of the Flores Sea mix with the cold upwellings brought from the south by the Indian Ocean.

The upwellings, originating in Antarctica, and the oxygenation caused by the fierce currents surrounding Komodo, meet to create rich plankton and nutrient blooms. This in turn, supports an amazing and colorful profusion of temperate marine life -- invertebrate, mammal and fish.

Coral flourishes in the area due to the relatively cool and consistent water temperature, between 24 and 28 degrees Celsius throughout the year. And while attracting marine life the current, which is almost always stronger at the surface than at depth, also has scared fishermen away from many of the sights and made dynamite and cyanide fishing ineffective.

The reefs, because they fall within the tourist draw of the Komodo National Park, are better protected than most in the country, and park rangers have also helped limit dynamite fishing. Divers and all park visitors pay Rp 25,000 for a three- day entrance pass to the park. The last savior of the reefs is the lack of divers, who are often an unintentional cause of damage to the reefs themselves.

According to UNESCO, the Komodo National Park alone is home to 250 species of reef-building corals and 1,000 fish species, more than the entire Caribbean.

Diving in the oceans south of Komodo is much colder but just as impressive. Enticed by the assurance of seeing manta rays -- our dive guide Anke Winkler of Labuanbajo Dive, said, "I can guarantee, well I am 99 percent sure, we will see manta rays," -- we set out on a five-hour boat trip from Labuanbajo.

Anke and her husband Frank have been diving in the area since 1994, and discovered many of the area's best dive sites. The chances of seeing manta rays here, at Manta Alley, just south of Komodo, has made this site one of the areas most popular sites. Ten minutes into our first dive a manta ray appeared about three meters above us as we came around a corner.

Looking upwards, the suns' ray created a crisp dark outline, highlighting the manta ray's three and a half meter wingspan.

For the next few minutes we gawked upwards, clinging close to the rock, and fighting the current as the graceful yet menacing manta ray hovered above us. In two dives here we saw over a dozen manta rays, turtles, a white tip shark, some large giant trevally, beautiful coral and a rich diversity of other invertebrate life.

Later that night, overlooking the islands and boats that dotted the harbor of Labuanbajo, the other divers and I shared a relaxing meal, and talked about the diving.

"The amazing thing is everything is unspoiled -- you never see broken coral -- it is all pristine," said Patricia Hurlimann, a German dive master with over 100 dives, who, along with American David Shaw, had come to Flores to see the three colored lakes at Keli Mutu.

They dove once on their way to the lakes and then decided to change their plans before they even got there, and had just dove six more times.

"In terms of condensed life, and richness of life in a small area, the diving is the best I have ever seen," said Shaw, who has dove all around the world and over 100 times. "It's impossible to take it all in one dive."

Daniel Burkholz, from Germany, a divemaster with over 200 dives, said: "It's world class diving but it's not world class prices. To go to a place where the diving is completely unexplored and it is guaranteed you will see manta rays is incredible."

Although we were sad to be leaving, the words of Tino Herrmann, a 25-year-old German who has done over 200 dives in the Komodo National Park, and over 1,000 dives in Southeast Asia and the Red Sea made us excited about coming back.

Herrmann said, that given the fact that the area is so unexplored, if he or other divers had the time and money to look for new dive sites in the park he is sure that new sites as good or better than those already known would be found.

In the rich unique oceans surrounding the dragons, it's clear there is still much to be discovered.