Continued from yesterday”¦ We suited up yet again, this time to go snorkeling with the Mantas. We swam around in search of them, and they didn’t take long to find. We saw a few individuals gracefully gliding along the floor below us. We also saw a group of four in a row, swimming in a wavy, loop de loop pattern one of the most elegant games of “follow the leader” we have ever seen. A couple more individuals entered the stage and suddenly we were looking at six mantas below us at once. It was pretty cool.

Within 15 minutes of climbing in the boat from snorkeling, we were again back in the water for our second dive. It was another large rock located few hundred feet from the first site. In the dive master’s briefing, we were told it was slack tide and the current would be minimal. He pointed out two possible routes that would be taken around the rocks we would find under the water, depending on strength of the current, and we would come up on the other side of the big rock.

This was another beautiful spot with tons of fish and colorful coral. There was a tiny cave you could swim in one side and out the other, and it was full of batfish. Christi had an even harder time equalizing, spending the majority of the time twenty feet higher than the rest of the group, which was again no big deal because it was just as pretty up high as down lower.

We again saw two turtles, and this time they swam near one another, which was neat to see. Eric got very close to one of them. The dive master had us looking in all kinds of nooks and crannies to check out all the life forms. We saw some of the green and white plant that we had seen in the swimming caverns in Niue. We saw a “bug” or slipper lobster.

For slack tide there was a tremendous amount of current that took a lot of energy to swim against. Fortunately, for most of the dive we were with the current, but there were several points we had to swim against it. One of the straps on Christi’s BC came loose and she couldn’t get it adjusted in the water, so she came up early. She is disappointed she wasn’t able to finish the dive.

Komodo National Park has replaced Fakarava as our favorite dive spot. It is even more colorful, with more types of coral and sea creatures to look at. And Fakarava is pretty spectacular, so that says a lot.

We were exhausted by the end of the second dive from all the hard core swimming we had done all day. On the ride back they served lunch, which consisted of a fish dish in a heavy sauce with vegetables, a cassava and green bean dish, rice, pineapple and bananas. It hit the spot as we were starved!

Much to our surprise, when we paid we were given a CD of 129 photos that Greg, the other dive master, had taken while we were in the water, at no extra charge. All of the photos in these two posts are compliments of Greg. We wish we could post more, because Greg got some beautiful shots. We have to say that we were pretty impressed with Dive Komodo. They are professional, personable, reasonably priced, and pay attention to the smaller details, such as a hot lunch, large beverage selection, and of course, the photos.