Komodo Snorkeling Tour Trip Report, Sept 22- Oct 3, 2015

I was a bit worried about the second of our two back-to-back Komodo National Park snorkeling tour. The first departure was so amazing, I didn’t know if our second one would deliver on the same level. Boy was I wrong! As on our first trip, we had great weather and a great group of snorkelers.

Similar to all of our tours that depart from Bali, we began our snorkeling adventure with Angel reef and Satonda. With ideal conditions at Angel reef and mating cuttlefish at Satonda, we knew this might be a tour for the books. Our high levels of excitement were easily sustained as we visited incredible sites around the park including some snorkels on black sand that contained a wealth of rare and exotic marine creatures, colorful coral gardens around some of the islands in the northern part of the park, and exhilarating drift snorkels along sites such as Tatawa Besar and Siaba Kecil. As for marine life, seahorses, ghost pipefishes, ocellated dragonets, manta rays, and starry-night octopuses were but a small sample of the wonderful marine creatures we saw. We even had a good look at the rare Komodo fangblenny, one of the more beautiful of the fangblennys. The brief but major highlight was the rare sighting of a dugong…check out the video on our Youtube site!

We were treated to a new experience by visiting the national park on Rinca Island, rather than our usual visit to Komodo Island. The park on Rinca proved to be a magical experience, with excellent encounters with Komodo dragons and a less commercialized, more ‘Jurassic Park’ feel to the overall experience. All of our guests appreciated both the fantastic views along the ridge as well as the intimate hike through the forest in search of the Komodo dragon nest.

It saddens us that we will not be back here for at least a year form now. This year, with a total of seven visits between the two of us we have become incredibly confortable with the area. We have explored and found many new snorkel sites. Most importantly, we also feel that we have gained a ton of knowledge about how to approach the snorkeling sites; when and at what tide cycle it is best to visit a particular site. Our portfolio of snorkel locations exceeds any 10-day tour, giving us a variety of options and yet, also making our decisions on what to show our guests much harder. All of them are exceptional! In the end, our passion and desire to explore and learn about the area translates to what we believe is one of the best snorkeling programs to Komodo National Park in the world.