Manta Manta

A fantastic journey through the ocean.

Starting early today we are heading out for diving and snorkeling today. The party consisting of family, friends and guides is geared for different levels of diving. As a complete beginner I will dive in the ocean for the first time. As I can provide no camera pictures this time I will try to produce them in your head with words.

We are heading out to the Island of Nusa Penida by speedboat. "It will be a choppy ride", I am being warned. Most party members took the 'no worry pill', I want to try my luck being sober. We start in a shuttle boat to pass the coral reefs and the sandbanks. Fishers with white half globe hats standing in the water like soldiers of a star wars movie. The sun is burning down and we are happy to move to the bigger speedboat. Two heavy Yamaha motors are growling, as the pilot is gearing toward the island at the horizon. The waves are hitting hard shaking the boat quite heavily, the Indian Ocean is standing up for his reputation as being moody. Jumping from one wave crest to the next flying fishes are following our boat abstracting me from thinking about nausea.

After about 30 minutes the cliffs of the island are taking shape out of the blue haze in front of us. Dark spotted sandstone is looming high over the boat guarding the land against the foaming waves crushing against it. Pictures of Isla Nubar come to mind, I would not be too surprised by a Pterodactylus exiting the small valleys cutting into the lush green of the inner island. But there are only elegant terns circling in front of the shore periodically diving for fish.

The double motor of the boat is humming lower, as we slow down joining a host of other boats bobbing in the swell. Diesel fumes accumulating and starting to make me queasy. "We have to go into the water, or you will become seasick", the guide advises. I put on mask an fins and jump into the surprisingly cold water. The first few breaths through the snorkel are weird, then my calm down. It is cold, loud and chaotic, hundreds of boats and even more people are floating in the turbulent water. I suck in through my nose to fasten the mask and sink my head into the blue silence. The guide in front of us is waving and with slow strokes of our fins we are following. Several meters under us I see bare rock and some corals, the image through my mask is crystal clear. The divers of our party are farther ahead. Slowly the guide is leading us around. From time to time I have to blow my snorkel free from the salty water and other people are bumping into me. Then I see them: Mantas, one, then two six and more. Alienlike with majestically slow moves they are speeding along just beneath me. After twenty minutes we are picked up by the boat again, freezing even in our wetsuits. "On the south side the water is cold and nutrient rich", the guide explains, "that's the reason he Mantas are here".

We leave the manta spot for crystal bay, will we see a Mola mola there? As we arrive at the destined bay I am warmed up again. Fewer boats and almost no waves make for a perfect snorkeling spot. The water is warmer, turquoise and clear like an aquarium. Calmly we are paddling along the shore gazing at colorful fishes of all sorts and even spot a school of young barracudas in the deep. After twenty minutes we start to feel the cold again. So we leave without seeing the big Mola mola.

The boat slowly takes us out to the small island of Lembongan. Here we will have our last dive. "This is special", the guide explains,"the current will carry us over the reef for a few hundred meters". We jump into the water and are stunned. Directly beneath our fins a divers coral reef is spanning as far as we can see in the clear water. Dreamlike we slowly are carried along through an aquatic landscape full of live. Among the countless fishes we spot turtles, needlefishes, clownfishes and cowfishes.

At the ride back everyone in the group is full of impressions. I have a few mixed feelings. At the one hand I am completely flattened by the biodiversity I have witnessed. On the other hand tourism like this is harming the ecosystem.