Our Planet

Fab Photo Friday: Reef Mantas in Komodo National Park

August 5, 2016 By Tam Warner 6 Comments

It is Fab Photo Friday! On Day 4, the Ray of Hope Expedition caught up with Mantas! ROHE’s main goal is always to identify as many manta rays as possible, and records were broken on this trip! Takat Makkasar is a known Manta hangout, so day 4 was mostly spent on this reef. When we were not diving it, we snorkeled it. There were Reef Mantas everywhere. As a matter of interest, only Reef Mantas, or Manta Alfredi, live in Komodo. These mantas are a little smaller than the Giant Manta, or Manta Biostris, and instead of traveling the oceans, Reef Mantas tend to stay within a certain “home” area. Reef Mantas can grow to be 12 feet in wing span, while the Giants can be over 20 feet in wing span. This was my very first time to see Reef Mantas, and I love them every bit as much as the Giants I have seen all over the world.

Ray of Hope, Manta Rays, Komodo, Arenui — ID shot of a beauty!

It is so interesting to watch mantas being cleaned. Many pelagics require cleaning (as do many fish) in order to clean wounds, and remove parasites. Butterfly fish are avid cleaners, and in some areas, Angel Fish join in. The butterflies nibble parasites, wounds, and other detritus from the ray.

The number of Manta IDs was incredible! Komodo National Park yielded 80 individual identifications on one day, a record breaker! Andrea was thrilled with the productivity of the trip…and we had a wonderful time along the way. What could be better than citizen science and fun?

Ray of Hope Expedition: Dive Adventure in Komodo

August 3, 2016 By Tam Warner 1 Comment

My latest dive adventure on the Arenui in Komodo, Indonesia was also a Ray of Hope Expedition. What is a ROHE, you ask? It is a trip where research and the sheer joy of diving conjoin. Dr Andrea Marshall, co-founder of the Marine Megafauna Foundation, explains: “Explore new aggregation sites with us, encounter mantas in remote destinations, photo-document manta rays for upload to Manta Matcher, participate in research activities, investigate manta ray fisheries and receive lectures from world-class biologists as a part of your package. The goals of each of the expeditions are unique but every trip is tailored to engage participants while producing high quality science.” I have been on several of these expeditions, and I have thoroughly enjoyed every one of them. It is exciting and rewarding to be able to participate in the field with scientists who not only share, but live, your passion for the ocean and its inhabitants. No matter where I go, I take Manta ID or Whale Shark ID photos where so I can upload them to the Manta Matcher or the Wildbook of Whale Sharks database. You can do it too! Find out how by clicking on Ray of Hope Expeditons! Check out my other Citizen Science trips. Africa, Ecuador, Yucatan, St Lucia, Komodo (now publishing).

Our second day of diving in Indonesia’s islands on the Arenui Boutique Liveaboard was non-stop excitement. Our first reef was Bontoh where I saw my very first Ghost Pipefish! Each dive showed me more and more animals I had never seen before. To see these “exotic” creatures was intoxicating! The sand on these reefs is black, or at the least, very dark, and this is due to the volcanic activity the area has had. One had to be very careful, make one wrong move and sand flies up like a cloud!

indonesia, diving, scuba, arenui — So many of the creatures are like flowers.

Our next two dives were spent at Black Diamond Reef. Each reef seemed more fabulous than the one before!

The night dive on Day 2 was at Bontoh. Diving at night is an ethereal experience with different animals entirely. Looking up, you could see the moon and the stars at the top of the water column. When looking around the reef, I found only miracles of nature.

indonesia, night dive, arenui — Check out the candy cane eye stalks on this Hermit Crab!

Our dive group consisted of Andrea Marshall, Queen of Mantas, myself, Alan, Tom, and our dive guide, Debbie! Each dive was better than the last!

Diving Komodo: Angel Reef and Satonda

August 1, 2016 By Tam Warner 24 Comments

I have to confess that the first dive in Komodo was unbelievable! It was like turning a sugar lover loose in a candy store. There was so much to see!

The Arenui is LUX. At 6:30 a.m. we were awakened, and everyone met in the dining room for “first breakfast”. First breakfast is continental…coffee, fruit, yogurt. Then, first dive of the day, followed by Second Breakfast which was anything you wanted: pancakes, french toast, eggs, baked beans on toast (for the Brits and Aussies), noodles…as I said, anything you want! And of course, by the time we came up from the first dive, our cabin was clean and sparkling.

Our first stop was Moyo Island and Angel Reef. I have to say that Angel Reef was heavenly, indeed! My first Komodo dive…and how gorgeous it was!

Angel Reef, Satonda, scuba, Arenui — A Red Spinecheek Anenome fish with its baby

After Angel Reef and Second Breakfast (I felt like a Hobbit!) our second dive site was Satonda. I saw Pygmy Sea Horses for the first time! I was too excited to focus on them with my camera, but still! Pygmy sea horses!

Of course, there was much more to see!

Komodo, scuba, diving, Arenui — A Giant Clam!

After finishing dive two, lunch is served! After lunch, dive 3. After dive 3, snacks! If a night dive is on the schedule, you do the night dive and then have dinner. The crew of the Arenui anticipate every thing you want. They really are amazing. If you want to dive Indonesia, do go on the Arenui! It is an incredible experience.

I will be back with scenes from Day 2!

Diving Komodo, Indonesia with Arenui, The Boutique Liveaboard

July 29, 2016 By Tam Warner 19 Comments

At the end of my stay on Bali, I embarked upon a journey through Indonesia to Komodo Island, diving, and much more, along the way. I chose the Arenui because it was sponsoring a Ray of Hope Expedition (Marine Megafauna Foundation) and Dr Andrea Marshall, aka Queen of Mantas, was on board as the resident expert. As many of my readers know, I have been on several trips with Ray of Hope, doing Citizen Science Volunteer work, and I love the Foundation’s mission to save marine megafauna from extinction. Andrea and I shared a room, and what a room! The Arenui is absolutely luxurious! The stateroom was large and roomy and so Indonesian! We stayed in Garuda, the stateroom named for the Hindu deity Garuda, a large humanlike bird who carried Vishnu on its back. The carvings in the room were beautiful, as you can see! The Arenui is definitely the most luxurious boat I have been on, and I am now absolutely spoiled.

Komodo, Arenui, scuba — Garuda…hand carving in our stateroom

The mission of the trip was to identify as many Reef Mantas as possible. Of course, along the way we would dive several other dive sites as well. The diving was incredible. The trip map below shows our journey from Bali, past Lombok and Sumbawa to Moyo Island and the Sangeang Volcano, to Komodo and Rinca Islands in the Flores Sea. It was an incredibly beautiful journey, both above and below the surface.

komodo, scuba, manta rays — Our Trip Map

komodo, diving, arenui — A Manta ID shot I took. Mantas are identified by the spots on their bellies…they are unique to each individual.

Andrea Marshall was the first person to do a PhD on Manta Rays. Until her research, very little was known about them. She discovered two species, and a large population off the coast of Mozambique, where she makes her home. She has advocated for protection everywhere in the world. Indonesia, once the main fishery for Manta Rays for Chinese medicine, is now protecting Manta Rays as they have realized they are worth more for their economy alive than dead. Sadly, the once flourishing colony of Reef Mantas off Mozambique has declined by 95% due to Mozambique’s refusal to protect the animals. Manta encounters drew many to Mozambique’s dive centers, and the disappearance of the mantas will have a negative effect on Mozambique’s economy. Andrea has witnessed the decline of mantas in Mozambique over the last 12 years, and it has been heartbreaking. The species is very vulnerable to extinction because of the slow reproduction of the animals. Females give birth every 2 or 3 years to only one pup, rarely there are twins. Fishing Mantas can destroy entire populations because they are taken faster than they can reproduce. These gentle, intelligent ocean giants must be protected in order to save the species from extinction. Andrea devotes her life to advocating for Manta Rays and other pelagics such as Whale Sharks, Mola Mola, and turtles.

Diving Indonesia was an unbelievable experience for me. The sheer amount of life in the seas is almost mind blowing. Stay tuned to Travels with Tam for photos and reports on this fabulous journey. I will be posting frequently to show you the wonders of Komodo (yes, there will be dragons!).

komodo, scuba diving, manta rays — Sangeange Volcano

These Koalas and Kangaroos in the Blue Mountains are Amazing and Magical!

July 8, 2016 By Tam Warner 5 Comments

What comes to mind when you hear “Australia”? I’m betting that Koalas and Kangaroos are at the top of the list, along with the Great Barrier Reef and the Opera House. Australia has so many creatures who appear only on the Australian continent, and that alone makes these animals special…not to mention adorable. And they truly are adorable.

On my tour of the Blue Mountains with Blue Diamond Luxury Tours our last stop of the day was at an animal sanctuary. Many of the animals are not able to go back into the wild, though some are born onsite. To see Koalas (they aren’t bears, they are marsupials), Kangas, Wombats, and Wallabies is a rare treat. Just watching them brings joy!

koalas, kangaroos, magic — Yum. Love those Eucalyptus leaves! They eat 2 and a half pounds of them a day!

koalas, kangaroos, empty nest — Koalas have one main interest: eucalyptus leaves.

blue mountains, wombats, empty nest — Yellow foot kangas have pretty yellow tails and feet

Here are some awesome birds!

Similan Islands National Park, Thailand, is Wonderful Diving!

June 22, 2016 By Tam Warner Leave a Comment

Thailand, dive trip report, scuba — Check out Fin Out of Water!

Finnerty Lambermon, or “Fin”, is a Citizen Scientist I met in the Yucatan, July 2015. We were both on a Ray of Hope Expedition with Dr Andrea Marshall, co-founder and the head scientist for Manta Rays at Marine Megafauna Foundation. Fin is from New Zealand, and adds a Kiwi’s touch to discussing the Dive Sites! She also has started a blog, Fin Out of Water. Be sure to visit her blog! I will say that Fin fits my criteria as an Amazing Woman!

Destination: Similan Islands National Park, Thailand
Itinerary: 4 days 4 nights with 14 dives. Cruising around the Similan islands, Koh Bon, Koh Tachai and Richelieu Rock dive sites.

At a relatively cheap price, and with Thailand’s reputation for pumping out Scuba divers en masse, I am not shy to say I wasn’t expecting much in the way of professionalism or safety when it came to diving the Similans. I am happy to report however, this trip was a pleasant surprise. The renowned Islands did not disappoint, and MV Pawara has been one of my favourite liveaboard trips to date. I arrived in Phuket a day before the boat was scheduled to depart, giving me some time to adjust to my surroundings and get over the dreaded air-conditioning cold/sniffle I had developed after being on planes and in Singapore airport transiting.

Somehow I had managed to book my trip smack bang in the middle of Chinese New year, and Phuket was absolutely full of Chinese families celebrating the holiday. Until the trip departure, I stayed at “Secret Cliff Resort” in Karon (officially in Karon, but on a hill in between Patong and Karon beaches) and found it was quite accessible by Tuktuk (a small vehicle that serves as a cab) to the markets and restaurants. It was obvious the local businesses and hotels in Phuket were struggling to absorb the load from the holiday and so, I was happy to be able to look forward to getting on the liveaboard and heading out to Sea away from the congestion.

The day the Liveaboard was due to begin, I was to be picked up from my hotel at 4pm for a 5.30pm boat departure. The van showed up 10 minutes late, but Phuket traffic can be as fun as Auckland’s (New Zealand), so it wasn’t really too terrible. I jumped in, dive gear and backpack in tow, and off we went to collect more divers booked on the trip. After 2 hours of driving Phuket’s highways, our driver pulled up to Tablamu Pier, a jetty full of boats lit up and bustling with excited divers. I was apprehensive at first, noticing all the dive boats looked pretty much the same, old but tidy, colourful but paint chipped, tired but working. All the boats looked similar, aside from one that was lit up, bright and proud with fairy lights down the centre. It looked like it must’ve been one of the top of the line boats, with an immaculate paint job, no rust stains and a warmness to it, and immediately I dreaded having booked the cheapest trip I could find. I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered the fairy light boat was in fact the MV Pawara, and my spirits immediately lifted.

thailand, liveaboard, scuba — Welcome to Patong Beach!

We were greeted by “Fernando”, one of the dive guides along with some of the boat boys who lowered our gear over the side of the jetty and down into a dinghy. We followed our luggage and headed out amongst the dive boats. It was a fun way to begin the adventure, calmly “putting” around the other dive boats in the dinghy until we arrived at the stern of our boat, our home for the next 4 days.

As I was helped onboard by Brian, another of the dive guides, I was shown a spot at the rear of the boat which would be my set up area for all of our dives. Unlike a lot of liveaboards where there is a ‘mothership’ and a dinghy or RIB to take you to the dive sites, boats in Thailand are designed to take you directly to the site, drop you off and wait at a safe distance until the divers surface. All divers onboard the Pawara had their own specific gear up spot, where you could sit down, slip on your BCD, take a few steps and then be in the water.

After setting up my gear, it was down into the hull to check out my cabin. Having booked a budget room, I was stoked to find I had been upgraded to a standard room due to the uneven ratio of male to female divers onboard. My Japanese roommate and I shared our own little bathroom, and were greeted with a sweet arrangement of flowers on our beds. The rooms are designed with maximum efficiency, so I was glad I had left my suitcase back at the hotel and only brought the essentials – there wasn’t much room for clutter!

After traditional Thai prayers for a safe voyage at the bow of the ship, complete with fire crackers and incense burning, the Pawara was off heading north to take us up to the Similan Islands where our dive adventure was to begin. There was a great international mix of cultures onboard from fellow Anzacs, Frenchies, Brazilians, Americans, Chinese and British. We all seemed to come together nicely despite the huge age ranges from the youngest at 12 up to the mid sixties. I suppose it was our shared love of diving that made us all get along.

Day one and dive one at “Anitas Reef” was a chance for everyone to ease in to diving, and I was impressed at the patience Fernando had for one diver in our group who was trying out new gear, whilst another one was overcoming the dustiness of not having dived for a while. With the focus of this first dive being based around getting comfortable, I was happy to still be able to see some great critters like Stonefish and Morays whilst checking my buoyancy and weighting was on point.

The following dives proved even more interesting, with one site having this crazy current that would randomly come up from the depths. Suddenly the balmy 29C degree water would instantly drop to 24C degrees ( I watched it on my dive computer astounded ) and you would be kicking against a mild current. It wasn’t unpleasant, just something different, and the site was great for diving as we got to see a myriad of species of frogfish – a fish that up until then I had only seen at depths more than 30meters, here we saw our first one at 12meters!

thailand, scuba, liveaboard — Funky Frogfish

I was so impressed by the diving in the Similans, from that first day with shallow sandy bottoms, through to pinnacles with wisp like cold currents, to sites where it seemed like Stonehenge had been flooded and covered in tiny beautiful nudibranchs. Having dived Palau, the Maldives, Vanuatu and the Great barrier reef I thought it’d be hard to further impress me but here I was, totally delighted by the fact that I was privy to seeing such beauty in yet another part of the world. It was here in the Similans that I realised I need to, I must, take everyone I know diving, whether they are interested in the ocean or not – the beauty of the underwater world needs to be shared, and the Similan islands are proof of this! How can people deny themselves visiting this beauty?

You’d expect the crew to have the best dives saved for last, but it was on day two that I had my most memorable dive of the trip – my first encounter with an Oceanic Manta ray.

‘Koh Tachai’ pinnacle rises up from the bottom of the ocean and attracts schools of Barracuda and Giant trevally who (when we dived in the late afternoon) were preparing for their dinner. Amazed by the huge school of Barracuda silently swimming in formation, it struck me suddenly that someone was banging their tank excitedly. Hurriedly looking around, I saw my buddy, Charlie wide eyed and looking right behind me (never a great feeling) and I whipped around to see what he saw. Immediately I was breathless as I looked into the beautiful black eye of a huge female Manta ray, effortlessly gliding past me as Cobia and Remora followed her. The elegance she had, the graceful way she swam around the divers, eyeing us up individually as if to say “Hey, haven’t seen you around here before” was a something I’ll never forget.

The great dives kept on coming, and I came to realise I never wanted to get off the Pawara. Richelieu Rock was next on the list, and although no Manta appeared here to check us out, the sheer richness of lush colours and mass of marine life was phenomenal. Another first for me, was seeing an Ornate ghost pipefish disguising itself amongst some soft coral. Had it not been for Fernando pointing it out as he took a photo, I never would’ve seen it being so well camouflaged in its environment. Along with Frogfish, Turtles, and female Cuttlefish laying their eggs – Richelieu rock had it all! Even in my dive log that evening I wrote “could dive it a gazillion times”.

Winding off the trip on the last day we were taken to the ‘Boonsong’ wreck, a shallow yet incredibly diverse site where the animals have taken a once floating vessel as their own, and created an artificial reef. Pufferfish and Honeycomb morays litter the wreck and its crannies while Cuttlefish blend into the rust coloured sand as they find crevices to deposit their eggs in. A couple of easy dives here to finish off what had been a fabulous trip.

Colorful nudibranch, they are so small! Size of my pinkie...maybe. — Colorful nudibranch, they are so small! Size of my pinkie…maybe.

Here's another nudi! — Here’s another nudi!

If you’ve always put off the idea of diving in Thailand like I had, I urge you to think again! Being relatively cheap to get to and having such great access to the Similan Islands, getting on a Liveaboard gives you a chance to see Thailands amazing coastline and experience small dive groups with attentive dive guides.

Good to know: Max dive times were 60 minutes, or when the first diver hit 50bar (700psi). Great if you can buddy with a diver and guide who have a similar air consumption rate to you.

Nitrox is free and after doing 4 dives in a day, you will notice the difference to diving air. Make sure to bring your Enriched air diver certification as proof, or better yet – book to do your course during the trip with the onboard Instructors.

As there can be many dive boats at a site at any one time, it is great to carry your own SMB, or Surface Marker Buoy (all guides do). The boats will lend you one for a fee, or make sure to bring your own.

Let them know any dietary requirements during the booking process – they will bend over backwards to feed you well. Being vegetarian I am used to going without any decent form of protein and carb loading on trips like this, but I was treated to amazing tofu and mushroom dishes, and traditional thai dishes made especially for me without meat. The cooks went above and beyond any expectations I had.

Aside from the ex-pat crew onboard, most of the Thai locals surprisingly don’t speak much English. Learn your basics to show your appreciation – the crew work hard and always smile, there isn’t anything they won’t do to make your trip more enjoyable.

Price range: Budget cabins 25,700 THB (728.00USD) twin share up to 35,700 THB (1010.00USD) master cabin twin share + Park fees 1800 THB, free nitrox, free wifi in certain areas, all meals included (you will not go hungry on this trip!) THB is the Thai Baht.

OUR PLANET

Subscribe to Blog via Email