13… dive guides, dive guests, dive life … and a little too much nakedness!

Life on a Liveaboard is all terribly well structured and organised with a familiar routine that you immediately fall into. The essential structure of a day is:

1. 6 ish - wake up and have first breakfast (I just have a delicious tea at this one, stumble about and put my swim wear and dive kit on and make sure I’m ready for stage 2).

2. 7 ish - dive no 1

3. Second breakfast (like hobbits but less underground!)

4. 10.30ish - dive no 2

5. Lunch

6. 14.30ish - dive no 3

7. Snack!

8. 18.45ish - dive no 4 (the night dive where you drop in just after sunset and take a torch and swim about in the darkness! More about that later)

9. Dinner

10. Go to bed….sleep …. Wake up and repeat.

So in short, get up, dive, eat, dive, eat, dive, eat, dive, eat, sleep; repeat for 6 days! There are also a fair amount of naps / reading / cups of tea in there too after each eating session. It’s called a ‘surface interval’ to allow nitrogen built up in the blood stream while diving to dissipate so these are actually life-saving naps! We always get a schedule written up for the day by the ‘cruise director’ (Mr Jimmy). One day, he put the dives in and left me in charge of putting the meals in ….

For each stage of the day, a little bell is rung and like Pavlovian digs, we trot off to either dive or eat. There is a lot of both that goes on. They don’t ring a bell for bedtime though; they let us decide when to go to bed to give the illusion of retaining some kind of control over our day but in reality, everyone is exhausted and stuffed full of food and in bed by 9am. Everyone has also admitted to and discussed getting to the end of (or during) dive 3 and starting to think about what ‘snack’ might be. On the first day, someone asked earlier in the day and the crew had a look in the kitchen and announced it was a banana. I had an image of a bell being rung and each of us being slung a banana to eat like well trained guests. However, what actually arrived was a massive dish of spring rolls (unexpected) and a plate of flambéed banana and vat of chocolate sauce to drizzle over. It was exciting. Snack is a little unpredictable though, one day it was little fancy sandwiches made of sliced bread with the crusts cut off….the filling was banana with strawberry jam and then it was all drizzled in chocolate. Interesting combo. But they’d rung the bell so we all ate it!

In addition to eating regularly, we also intersperse our meals with diving ….

In the water here, we are split into 3 small groups and each group has a dive guide for every dive - the changing currents and conditions would make it too dangerous for anyone to dive without a guide who is familiar with the area. My group is Shelley and American Tom, who talks a lot but has been travelling for the past couple of years and is a good bloke despite his fairly constant chat, which is mostly about everything up he had done so far and how terribly impressive it all is. It’s a relief to get into the peace and quiet of the water. Our guide is Yopi. Dive guides always lead the group and control the pace, location and direction of the dive and also try to find and spot cool fish and critters to point out to us. They seem to love spending a few minutes with their head buried in some little nook or poking about in a piece of coral where they know there is something located, while we float about nearby. When victorious, they will bang their tanks to call their divers’ attention and get us to come and see what they’ve found. Sometimes it is something incredible, beautiful or exciting. Sometimes it is not. They do tend to have a habit of digging something tiny out the sand or from a piece of coral and calling you over …. I diligently head over, look at it, most of the time can see what they’re pointing out - but not always - give an ‘OK’ signal, take a photo and then back away for the next person. Most of the time, the small critters, though sometimes beautiful, aren’t of huge interest to me. I just really enjoy floating along looking for any puffers, looking at the whole scape of coral gardens and seeing all the reef fish and when you’re lucky, the ‘big stuff’. At one dive site, we were all busily watching a reef shark cruise around the incredibly beautiful coral, who was then joined by a massive napoleon wrasse as a manta ray swooped over our heads. It was mind blowingly cool; this is what you come Komodo for. Yopi wasn’t overly interested as his head was stuck in a piece of coral and he banged his tank to show us something tiny. In that instance, we all pointed at the various amazing things around and stayed watching them. I never did find out what that particular tiny thing was but unless it was an actual baby mermaid, it would not have beaten what was going on around us!

A night dive is often particularly full of ‘oh yes, you’ve dug that tiny wriggly thing out of the sand, which I am now looking at while it burrows back into the sand. I have no idea what it is but it’s obviously terribly exciting’. Then we go onto the next tiny thing in the sand. You do also see some cool stuff too - sleeping fishes, other fish that hunt at night - including the particularly brazen lion fish who have definitely learnt to follow divers - or more specifically, divers’ lights - to use them to find tiny fish to pounce on and eat up. They are keeping to the snack - dive - dinner routine, which is good. You have to be slightly careful because although beautiful, they will get close to you to use your light and won’t ever intentionally attack but do have poisonous spines, should you brush against them. It’s a little disconcerting when you turn and realise you have been floating over some critter or other, with a torch beam aimed at it, only to find the lion fish has joined you and is also hovering just by your face ready to pounce into the light and eat the pretty little critter you’ve just been admiring! You can actually find tiny fish and shine on the them and watch the lion fish pounce and gobble it up. It’s really cool to do but is effectively sacrificing a tiny little fish for your own enjoyment so perhaps not something to do too regularly!

In addition to this, Shelley has upped the night dive game significantly with her ‘black lights’… these magic pieces of kit are UV light torches which lots of the pretties will fluoresce under. We can’t see it with the naked eye but a lot of things, in turns out, fluoresce at night and the black light shows that. You then look through an orange tinted shade over your mask (to stop everything appearing blue and just reveal the light show) and suddenly there is a world of lit up and fluorescing corals, anemones and even the odd little creature. It was AMAZING!

As well as our sea based activities, this trip has also included a couple of land based trips; we ‘hiked’ up a massive bloody hill with a path of almost 900 steps (in the heat and sun and total lack of breeze … it was a very sweaty time. I am not a fan of steps or hills but I didn’t want to miss out on the view) to see the panorama of Komodo National Park and sit and watch the sun set. It was quite a climb (like when you climb up and summit Buster Mountain), which a number of people all congregated to do - including a Philippino couple who arrived, changed in their wedding gear and proceeded to have their wedding photos taken! Once the sun had set, we all traipsed back down the hill in time for the bell to signal feeding time.

Our other land based trip was to Komodo island to see the dragons! We were deposited onto the pier of Komodo island and as we got down to the beach, a dragon arrived for an excellently well-timed photo shoot. We then went for a ‘trek’ to try and spot more … we didn’t (and I suspect no one ever does but they’ve got to make the trip an hour or so to make you feel like you’ve got value for money!). We did, however, see some deer (I did not expect them here), a massive spider (the size of a large human hand, it’s legs included), cockatiel and some big geckos. As were were watching the deer, I noticed what I thought was a big lizard and pointed it out, the guides came over and told us it was a baby dragon (about 5 months old!). They congratulated me for having ‘good eyes’. Firstly, I was brought up by a lizard enthusiast, who is a pro at spotting them and have a shared enthusiasm for them so I always notice them. Secondly, while it may have been a baby Komodo dragon, it was a 50cm long lizard so it wasn’t exactly hard to spot! Once back on the beach, we were lucky enough to coincide our arrival with a massive dragon’s who lumbered really close and passed by. He was huge and extremely cool; a real treat! They tell you to just watch but not get in it’s path - which is fine except it kept turning to walk towards us where ever we shuffled over to!

Following our land based excursions, we then returned to full days of diving and spent one day in North Komodo where the current is strong. The famous dive here is called ‘Shot gun’ … it is named accurately. We had a full brief and lots of info on what to expect - essentially, drop in on a protected side of reef out of current, drop down to 20m depth, get ready, fully empty all the air out your jacket (so you don’t have anything floaty about you and less likely to be pushed dangerously quickly to the surface!) then approach the shot gun. This is basically where there is a narrow channel between two islands that when the tide starts to fall, the sea rushes through the narrow gap at speed. Once ready, the idea is that you then let the - at this point gentle - current swoosh you along the sea bed towards the channel and you get caught in the current as you approach a gradual slope that goes from 20m deep up to about 12m depth (ignoring your dive computer alarm which will go off because you’ve gone up too quickly!) and then over the crest and into the channel, where you’ll get carried through and spat out the other side where you kick fairly frantically against the current to swim off to the side and back round to the protected area (and not the other way as that would bring you into a washing machine current when you’d probably have to drop all your weights and kick for the surface!)! Simple! We were all sorted and drifting towards to the start; you really feel the current pick you up and you absolutely whizz up the slope and get fully fired over the crest into the channel. We were briefed so well and knew what to expect that it was surprisingly just really fun! You’re not meant to stop in the channel as it’s such mega current it is almost impossible …. but as we shot over the top, we were joined by a manta ray who was riding the shotgun at the exact same time as us…. Everyone grabbed the nearest rock and hung on in buffeting current to watch him for a long as our arms could hold us! We were all being vibrated in the mega current, flying out and gripping onto our rocks in current so strong, you can feel your mask getting pushed from your face and the button on the outside of your regulator (which is in your mouth) being pushed by the water so extra air is getting purged into your mouth…. The manta just glided serenely about 2 foot above us apparently not having the same difficulties that we were! Once we were signalled to, we all let go of our rocks and flew through the rest of the channel and fortunately, successfully navigated our way to safety.

On our next dive, we were told to expect strong current and briefed about dropping into the blue, swimming down hard to 25m depth, by which point we’d have been whooshed along to the reef where we’d hook in and watch the world under the sea playing in the current. In we dropped, down we kicked, reached the sand and were a bit confused. We then had to swim ourselves to the reef and found absolutely no current at all. We were all a bit bemused but were clearly not alone in that as we hung out with a group of about 6 reef sharks who were also waiting for the current! All the cool stuff was there with us, we just didn’t have to fight current to watch it so it was fab! Finally, we finished the day with a nightdive. During this day, two of my dive nightmares happened….I accidentally surprised a trigger fish monster as I came round a bommie shone my torch at it, it took offence, flicked its trigger up and fully went for me! I did a massive scream into my reg (which I’m told was really easy to hear at suite some distance I the water!), swam as fast as I could side ways and away (out of its upturned cone shaped territory) while it snapped at my fins (they will take a little chunk out of your leg if they catch you!). Shelley was just ahead of me so we both did a massive swim away and managed to avoid attack and live to tell the tale. My second disaster was that I accidentally saw a lovely big tuna, when I was watching the sharks and giant travelly hunting. In general, once I’ve seen it, I struggle to eat it… I’m going to have either find a way past that rule or significantly amend my diet! Until now, I have actively avoided looking at tuna and have turned away if anyone signals for one (the signal for tuna is a dreadfully depressing one - the motion of holding a tin and turning a tin opener!)

Our last dive included a massively significant one for Shelley - her 1000th dive! There are various traditions in scuba diving, one of which is that the 100th (and then multiples thereafter should you wish to!) are naked dives …. Just fins, mask, jacket & tank and nothing else. Not everyone follows this tradition - I was in Tenerife for my 100th and in a full rash vest and 7ml wetsuit to avoid hypothermia and completing my rescue training so luckily avoided even the suggestion of naked! The 1000th dive is a milestone not many people get to and it’s a major one. I’d spoken to the trip organisers in advance and alerted them and they were ace. Before we dived, there were congratulations and photos and then during the dive, Shelley did a very modest, classy topless dive, there was a banner and more photos under water and then the most incredible cake presented to her after she’d finished. A few others on the boat wore less than their full wetsuits in solidarity and two of the boys went full naked throughout (this was apparently in support and celebration of Shelley but I’m not sure they needed much of an excuse to de-robe and let it all hangout - literally! It was uneventful nakedness but fortunately the fish behaved themselves and although neither of the boys’ buoyancy is that good, they stayed higher above the reef and thus avoided the threat of brushing against fire coral so it was all ok!)

On our final day, the diving finished in the morning to give everyone time to be on land and clear the nitrogen from our bodies ready for any flights anyone had the next day. We indulged in more napping and book reading and playing in the sea. There was some jumping off the boat which I am proud that I managed to join in with although everyone else seemed to be able to do it without screaming! I do not know how. They also didn’t have to do a fast swim back to the boat to get out the water before the sea baddies who spotted swimmers out of their depth came and ate them all up.

In all, an utterly incredible week with incredible diving, brilliant boat mates and the best time. Now for a rest!