Under Komodo

I'm finally getting through my underwater pix from my December trip to Indonesia. While I had a great experience with the Komodo dragons on the beach, (see last post) most of my time on this trip was spent exploring the reefs in and around Komodo National Park. It's a bit of a voyage from Bali to get there - about a day and a half at sea before diving. It was worth the wait. For me it was especially good since it was my first time in the water in 2 years. (another story for another time) December is technically considered off-season around Komodo, but there was still plenty going on. Of course, the other side of being there off-season is that you often have the dive sites to yourselves! And it's even better when there are only 4 other divers with you. Having dived in Indonesia quite a bit over the years, I was familiar with a lot of the life I saw, but there's always new and amazing stuff to find. The reefs were healthy and fishy, but with a noticeably small number of sharks around. Always sad to see the depletion of sharks when diving, especially in the waters of a national park. There was tons of other life just about everywhere, but one of the highlights of this trip had little to do with fish or coral and had lots to do with diving next to a volcano. Sangeang Island is an active volcano north of Komodo, off the coast of Sumbawa, which had it's last major eruption just 3 years ago. One of the dive sites there is appropriately named "Hot Rocks", with active gas vents bubbling out of the sand & reefs. The "ring of fire" has some pretty cool stuff. Enjoy the photos. I included a little video clip of the gas vents as well.