Another great weekend diving the reefs and wrecks around Northern Bintan, Indonesia aboard The Seaborne (Live on Board). Escaping the haze on Friday evening, we left from Tenah Marah Ferry Terminal and headed over to Nongsa ready to board the awaiting The Seaborne. That weekend we had 10 divers accompanied by 2 Instructors; myself (James) and PADI Instructor Alex and also our very own GS Diving PADI DiveMaster Kelvin.
Saturday morning after setting off in the early hours we arrived at our first dive site Sumpat Island. We were following on from the promise of our visit a fortnight ago and we were itching to explore more of the area around this site. Diving the island and surrounding northern reefs of Bintan for the rest of the day we were treated to a diverse spectacle of marine life with pretty good viz of around 10 – 15m.
Around Sumpat Island, there was little to no current. A real treat! The macro life particularly impressed all the divers and sent some of the macro hunting photographers into almost euphoric states. Some cracking photos were taken and sample of some can be seen below. A big thanks to Alex for sharing these.
Saturday evening we were back at Sumpat Island for a brilliant night dive which proved to be covered in crabs of every shape size and colour, with nudis everywhere, cuttlefish and a very inquisitive scrawled filefish nosing around us during our safety stop.
The only thing which could have topped that night dive was the infamous Seaborne Saturday night BBQ. This left everybody in a state similar to the Monty Python Mr Creosote “it’s only wafer thin” scene.
On Sunday we dived the Valley Forge Wreck. The current was a little challenging and didn’t ease through the dive but once on the wreck it was great to explore this expansive wreck with plenty of intact identifiable structures and some great little swim throughs.
Back to Nongsa we headed and we then caught the ferry back over to sunny Singapore, before remembering the haze.
It was a cracking weekend. A big thank you to all who came and congratulations to Asyraf for completing his PADI Open Water course.
Cheers, James