Long weekends are fantastic for diving Anambas, Indonesia. We headed out from Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal (TMFT) Singapore, Friday night and travelled overnight to our first dive site, an island called Damar about 110 miles from Batam.
The visibility was fantastic all weekend. We completed 8 dives around Anambas, Damar, Repong, Katoka Rock, Bawah and Malang Biru.
All fantastic with black tip reef sharks and turtles at some sites.
The highlight and low light was Katoka Rock. As we were descending a school of amber jacks decided to swim around me like a tornado. Just amazing, then they went and did the same to another diver nearby. Unfortunately, no one had a working camera to capture the scene.
After the great dive, we were all stung by jellyfish at the safety stop. There were so many we had to cut short the safety stop in order to get of the jelly infested water.
The other group of divers were also stung, but a lot worse then my group because they were all wearing bikinis and shorts with fully exposed arms and legs.
After the night dive on the last night, the jelly fish were at the back of the boat. The only way to move them was to get under them and blast them away with the alternate air course and quickly make a dash for the ladder.
We managed two awesome dives at Igara Wreck Monday morning. The first dive had some mild to strong current but the second dive did not have any current. We managed to swim from the bow to the stern of the wreck and safely returned to the Seaborne via the rope.
Another great weekend, great dives, great food, great company. Congratulations to Tobias on completing your PADI Advance Open Water Course.
Glenda’s tip: Best to wear long exposure suit when scuba diving. This could be a rash guard or wetsuit. You never know what nasties might be lurking in the water.
Thanks to François Logeais and Alex Tay for the use of your photos.
Cheers, Gary Savins
By the way, we did not attempt to dive Seven Skies Wreck once we heard the report from the other boats that it has been salvaged. Such a sad day to see people destroying things that don’t belong to them. Money can be a greedy evil. What has the world come too? Soon there will be no wrecks left for us to dive if we don’t stop this illegal salvaging. I have created an album in FaceBook to capture her memory. May she rest in peace. Click here to view.