From Clifton Gardens in Sydney to Gili Banta in Komodo in three days. Don’t worry it’s not a tale of a tortured trip to Komodo more a reflection on what’s good diving one day is eaten for dinner the next! A group of us were travelling with Frog Dive Sydney (trip put together by Allways Dive Expeditions) to spend 10 days on the Indo Siren travelling around Komodo for
We flew via Bali, where we had to overnight, before catching the flight to Bima to pick up our boat…the Indo Siren. The boat shares its time between Raja Ampat, The Banda Sea and Komodo, depending on the season, and a very comfy boat it is too. 8 good sized rooms, all with ensuites and air-conditioning, plenty of deck and cabin space to lounge around on, two tenders to run us around and onboard nitrox. Importantly it also had a great crew who really looked after us (we had the boat to ourselves) and a rally big shout out to Laura and Tristan who were the cruise directors and did a good job of running the boat and the dive schedule.

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There is a line of thought in the scientific community that this is where the first corals originated… a large sheltered bay, roughly one third along the north coast of the island now called New Britain.
The bay is called Kimbe and the country is Papua New Guinea – the wild and exciting nation crafted together in colonial times from the eastern half of the huge island of New Guinea and a string of other islands stretching out in to the Bismarck and Solomon Seas.
There can be no doubt regarding the profound fecundity of Kimbe Bay because the numbers, as they say… cannot lie and surveys by some of the best known names in marine biology, such as Professor Charles Veron and Dr Jerry Allen, and respected organizations like The Nature Conservancy, have helped to establish a bewildering array of statistics for the area.

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It’s pretty close in size and shape to a folded cocktail umbrella, barely visible in the gloom. And it’s one of the most remarkable things I’ve ever seen underwater - once I managed to even spot it. At 30 metres on this rubble slope it might just be another bit of sand-coloured detritus, until I wave my hand over the top of it. I know octopus skin has no blue pigment, yet those vivid, electric blue rings instantly flash like internal LEDs, outlined a little more slowly by the kind of dark patterning familiar to anyone fortunate enough to encounter other octopuses underwater regularly. This mesmerizing light show is, of course, a warning. Smaller than my little finger, this beastie is letting me know I need to stay away. And for good reasons of self-preservation, as well as basic courtesy, I’m going to do as it suggests. Cephalopods – octopuses, squids, cuttlefish and their cousins - are all intriguing.

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