Manta Rays!!!

Once we arrived on Flores we had one major objective, go diving! Diving off Komodo Island is world renowned since the ocean around Komodo is National Park. No fishing, no bombing, just pristine coral and thousands of fish. Only one problem. Diving in this part of Indonesia is for experienced divers, which we were not. Luckily we found a shop that had a small group going out and we were allowed to join. Usually they like divers to have 50 plus dives under their belt before they dive in these waters. 

Our first dive was off a small rock barely above the ocean. Fortunately for us this small rock turned into a large rock under the surface. Easily our most fantastic dive to date, the coral was beaming with all colors of the rainbow and endless amounts of textures and patterns. A few highlights were the huge green turtle we watched for a while and a snake slithering throughout the coral.

Photo Courtesy of Hani Amir

On our second dive we were venturing into what's called a current dive. You jump in the water and off you go. Hot damn is this fun, and scary. By the time you can process what you just saw your already 10 feet past it and dodging oncoming coral. While this was very fantastic the real excitement was yet to come. We dove in the current for one thing, and when we came upon the glorious mantra ray all I could say into my mask was (Cassie will be mad at me for cussing) holy shit… 

Island time

Two months into our trip we finally arrived on a beautiful island in Malaysia. Tioman Island was our home for a week as we studied scuba diving with Scuba Steve. The South China Sea was warm and crystal clear. While we spent a large majority of our time studying it was worth it in the end. We saw three huge green turtles, many colorful fish, and even a black tip reef shark briefly on our dives.
We also met many great people while sitting at the relaxing sunset bar every evening. Australians, Sweds, Canadians, British, and even the Germans once again that we meet in Singapore. It was extremely tough to leave, but there are more islands to explore in northern Malay.