I Will Adapt to Have Gills

“The only place in the world I feel free is also the only place I can’t stay” -Sabrina Medina

Okay so let’s talk about the diving on these islands. I already told you how amazing the snorkeling was and how much more excited I was to dive after that. It was a two-dive day for $76. All my dive friends should know that is a complete STEAL, especially in such incredible waters! We went to different spots than we snorkeled which I appreciated so that I could see as many places as possible in the short amount of time I was there; although that meant the probability of diving with Mantas was very low.  It’s okay though because I will have plenty of time to do that while I’m here in Indo. The first dive spot was Toya Pakeh in Nusa Penida, off of the cliff face. Now I was the only one not wearing a wetsuit and everyone thought I was crazy but the water was soooo warm! It was 77 degrees (25 C) so there was no way I was about to wear a 3-5mm wetsuit. We put on our weight belts, BCDs, mask, and fins (to my Maui friends, yes I brought my kicks AND my freediving fins), and backrolled into the water to begin our dive. There were 6 of us in our group, two of those were the divemaster and DM candidate, so it was a very nice small group size to explore with. Again, I can’t get over the coral here and describing this dive in words isn’t going to do it justice but I will try. Let’s start with the corals. Indonesia has one of the biggest sea ecosystems in the world, has THE highest biodiversity on the planet, and has roughly 750 species of corals alone. This is why it is part of the World’s Coral Triangle which is the center of marine biodiversity out of anywhere else. I’ve only gotten to see soft corals one other time in my life, in the Great Barrier Reef, before I was able to really appreciate corals and their importance. They aren’t in California because it is way too cold for coral in general and they aren’t in Maui because the biodiversity is fairly low since it is a part of the most isolated chain of islands in the world; and possibly because they are too fragile to withstand the surf. My favorite soft corals that I saw while diving were the tree corals (dendronephthya hemprichi). Picture kale underwater, a little more transparent, brightly colored, and you have a good image of what I am talking about. There were also beautiful Feather stars. They swim through the water with their gentle, feather-like arms and their “legs” can attach to other corals when they want to be immobile. As for the hard corals, there was a lot of staghorn coral, which looks like the antlers of a deer just on a smaller scale, and table coral which looks a lot like huge plates and provides coverage and homes for many different species. Both I was able to recognize on my own! P.S. Thank you to Sabrina who helped me get through this post by identifying the corals I’ve seen from all the way back in Maui<3 Then we have all the fish. I saw tons of Pyramid butterflyfish, finally got to see a Clown triggerfish, our friends the Lauwiliwilinukunukuoioi (Longnose butterflyfish), and a Humphead wrasse. Now when I think of a wrasse, from my previous experiences, I think of small parrotfish. This one was so big it was probably 4 feet long at least! It dwarfed all the other fish around it definitely ruled the area wherever it swam. We also got to see a reef octopus!! Biggest octopus I have ever seen; maybe the size of a basketball. I could have been content sitting and watching him/her for the rest of the dive but I have become very infatuated with them after reading The Soul of an Octopus. Highly recommend reading it if you have not!

After about an hour, at a max depth of 60 feet, it was time to come up for our surface interval and lunch. Our next dive was around the other side of Penida at Sekolah Desar, which translates as elementary school since there was one just up on the shore from this site. This was my first drift dive and man was it unbelievable. The water temperature here got up to 80 degrees so even though I usually start to get cold on a multiple dive day without a wetsuit, that was not the case here. Drift dives are different than normal dives (obviously) because you have to be aware and careful of the current but also because you get to see so much in such a short amount of time. They are difficult for wanting to stop and really look at things. By the time you get your dive buddies attention and point it out, it’s long gone. This dive had a slope that continued down to the depths of dark blue water and was so incredibly intriguing but I knew with my little kicks on and this super strong current, that was not a smart idea; plus we were already at 68 feet. I may have been a little deeper than everyone else..oops. The most notable thing about this dive was the 5 Hawksbill turtles we saw. There are 200 total in the Hawaiian islands because they are so highly endangered and I saw one in the 14 months that I lived there but I just saw 5 in a single hour! Sadly, they are still endangered in Indonesia as well.

The visibility at both these spots was somewhere around 20 meters so we had plenty of things to see in our range! One of the guys on the boat was getting his Rescue certification so we got to watch him complete all of his tests in and out of the water which consisted of the instructors messing with him in any way possible (i.e. falling off the boat and pretending to drown, ripping his mask off underwater, attaching to him like a leach freaking out, or passing out under the surface). He did a great job and it was cool to be able to watch from a diver’s perspective because Rescue is my next goal. I am so excited to be diving in Komodo, where I will be living for the next couple of months. All of the people I have talked to said it is their favorite spot in the world; better than the Great Barrier reef, Thailand, and the Philippines. I. CAN’T. FREAKING. WAIT.!!!!