Suzanne, Tobias, Kat, Jon and my student Ovi boarded the MV White Manta along with 30 other divers and headed out for 4 days of Expedition Diving around West Anambas.
It is sad to see the decline of the reefs in Indonesia and the obvious damage done by dynamite fishing. There were no Black Tip Sharks to be seen at Repong, which is extremly unusual.
We spent the next 2 days diving around West Anambas. My student Ovi completed most of the required skills and a simulated decompression dive, so we decided it was time for the real thing and planned a 40m deco dive. We discovered a large rock at 40m and despite the strong current, we managed the stay there for 5 minutes to swim with a school of very large hump head parrot fish.
On the final day we did two excellent dives at the Igara wreck, the first one we spent most of the dive in the cargo holds to avoid the current on the deck. The second dive was the best dive of the weekend, there was no current and managed to see a huge school of Barracuda and a massive Marble Ray at the stern of the Igara. This is the first time I had seen this Marble Ray. We dived the entire wreck including the bow, which is an awesome sight that I have seen so many times.
During the surface intervals we tried to come up with other names for GS and there were some interesting ideas like – Guaranteed Sharks, Great Skills, Good SCUBA and of course there were many rude ones I can’t mention here :)
Ovi completed the final skill of a no mask accent on the final dive and he is now a certified TDI Advanced Nitrox, Decompression and Extended Range Diver. Congrats to Ovi.
Happy Diving