Diving with Diving4Images in
Indonesia/Bali, Komodo in 2003/06:
an Instant Reader Report

 Indonesia (Bali, N. and S. Sulawesi), California, Honduras, Bonaire, Sea of
Cortez 

Dive Conditions

Come back with some air  

On the Pelagian there's a camera room with 120/240 outlets. Good amount of
room for cameras, on-board developing if required. Large rinse tanks. Crew
was carfeful with equipment.  

Overall Rating

We did a few day dives in Bali and then a ten day cruise on the Pelagian
with Graham from Diving4Images. Excellent guide with a talent for spotting
hard to find subjects. Tell him what you want to find and he'll go looking
or tell you where to try. 

Diving was mostly black sand/muck diving. In Bali did some day dives near
Padang Bai, lots of critters but the reef is nothing special. On the cruise
travelled from Bali through Sumbawa to Komodo. Four dives a day including a
night dive every night. Critter diving was excellent. We saw just about
everything. New nudibranchs on almost every dive. Hunting cuttlefish,
octopus (including blue-ringed), squid. Wasp fish, Pegasus sea moths,
stargazers, Inimicus, Rhinopias, frog fish, eels, snakes, turtles, sharks,
manta, two pygmy seahorse species. A huge variety of crustaceans. Did a
couple of dives in new spots around Rinca and saw sharks and some large
marble rays. Didn't see large schools of fish in general but around Komodo
and Rinca there where some big grouper, travallies, Napolean Wrasses,
barracuda and schools of jacks.

Water temp in Komodo area was 73-79F and you really needed a 7mm suit with
a hood to be comfortable. The rest of the time it was low 80's and 3mm was
fine. Currents and viz were variable. In Horseshoe Bay (Rinca) viz was
around 20-30 ft with lots of junk in the water. Around other sites viz was
up to 100ft, but mostly in the 30-40ft range.   

All in all an excellent cruise and a great time diving in Bali. If you are
going to Bali and want a guide for the area I highly recommend Graham. If
you want to go on a cruise he does charters on the Pelagain and other
boats. This was Graham's first on the Pelagian and it was superb. We can't
wait to go back  

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