Another fantastic weekend diving onboard MV The Ark. This live onboard boat (LOB) departed from Singapore’s Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal Friday night and returned early Sunday night at 6.30pm.
This weekend was some exploratory diving off East Bintan around the Mapur area, Indonesia. Well exploring for MV The Ark, because I took the MV Giamani there for 5 weekends in 2013.
We did dive some new sites though, thanks to the local fisherman we had onboard with us. The viz was actually really good, well all except for the first dive. We did experience up to 10 metres viz during the weekend.
We dived Black Rock, which was amazing with thousands of soft corals and millions of small fish. We also dived Sentut Island and the hard coral and fish life were great. Some of my divers even saw a school of giant barracuda. I saw a one humphead parrot fish, other than that not much else was bigger, except the divers of course.
The two new sites we dived were great. One was a sloping reef that was from 4 metres to 30 metres, deep and huge. We dived it for 60 minutes and did not see everything the site had to offer. Again great viz with loads to see. I have named this new site, Sloping Reef. It wasn’t quite a pinnacle and due to its gradual meandering nature, Sloping Reef seems fit.
I was also extremely happy to dive a new wreck. Well this wreck is known, in terms of general location, but it was the first time I had actually dived it. So from all of the time I had been to Mapur on the MV Mata Ikan and MV Giamani, I was not aware of this wreck. Andrew took these photos:
The wreck was huge, at least 150 metres long and mostly broken up. The only pieces you could recognise were the remains of the boiler room, the bow and stern. The rest was broken into many pieces. The wreck name in unknown, but I will try and find out. It is very similar to the Valley Forge which is not far away.
I was very busy teaching PerMangus TDI Advanced Nitrox, Jo PADI Advanced Open Water Diver Course and Andrew PADI Rescue Diver Course. Congratulations to all! Peter was tagging along as a recreational leisure diver. Thanks for the company Peter.
It was a great weekend and I look forward to exploring this region some more.
Cheers – Gary
Thanks Andrew for the use of your underwater photos.