8 Days in Komodo Island - A Diver's Paradise
- alaughingseal
- Aug 1, 2018
- 5 min read
Updated: Nov 4, 2019
Komodo Islands is famous for its pristine beaches, its visibility underwater and top-notch views from high above. It is home to underwater gentle giants - manta rays, reef sharks - and blossoming colourful coral gardens. It is a place like no other, and divers like myself are left in awe after doing a liveaboard.
Number of days: 8 days (5 for a diving liveaboard)
Budget per person: Dependent on your choice of exploration
Travel period: July 2018
Weather: Sunny
Accommodation:
Palm Komodo Hostel (before and after liveaboard)
Main Activities: Diving and Trekking
Must-go recommendations: Diving (!!), Padar Island
After spending a few days in the Nusas Island in Bali, we flew from Denpasar Airport to Labuan Bajo (read as la-buan ba-ho) via Nam Air for about S$220 for a return ticket. Their domestic flights tend to be slightly more expensive despite it being a short flight - 1h duration. Tip: be prepared for delayed flights by bringing a book along with you or download some shows on Netflix on your phone!
Day 1
Travelling from Denpasar Airport to Labuan Bajo
Upon reaching Labuan Bajo, we checked into our accommodation - Palm Komodo Hostel and we were so impressed with its cleanliness and its swimming pool! It was one of the nicest hostel I've ever stayed in and we really loved the bean bags by the pool. The ambience was really chill :") This was exactly what we needed before going on our diving Liveaboard!
We have decided to just walk around the place, look for some food and have an early night. We were really lucky to be greeted with a street food marketplace just down the street where we could have BBQ food for dinner.
Accommodation: Palm Komodo Hostel (IDR 200,000/person)
Day 2 - Day 6
5D4N liveaboard on Empress II
In the morning, our liveaboard operators picked us up from the hostel and soon, we reached the boat where we were going to have the time of our lives! Not only was our cabin decently huge for 2, their sundeck was beautifully designed with comfortable cushions for us to relax in between dives.
Read here to find out more about what are some of the tips to surviving a liveaboard and what you should bring onboard!
Throughout the 5D4N liveaboard, we were blessed with a GREAT chef, who could cook different delicious cuisines, and fed us really well with lots of snacks in between. We were truly never hungry on the liveaboard! We were constantly well fed with sumptuous food and I think that is of utmost importance because we would be spending at least 12 meals onboard this boat!
This is how our typical day would look like (the timings are just a rough estimate):
6am: wake up
6.30am: pre-breakfast
7am: 1st dive (each dive would usually last for about 45min)
8.30am: done with first dive
-- Breakfast --
10am: 2nd dive
11.30am: done with 2nd dive
-- Lunch --
2pm: 3rd dive
3.30pm: done with 3rd dive
-- Tea Break --
7pm: 4th (night) dive
-- Dinner --
Tip: Prepare your cameras during sunset! If you enjoy chasing sunsets just like me, you would find yourself watching every sunset as they are ridiculously beautiful!
A typical day with 4 dives can indeed be very tiring, and hence, I am really glad that Empress II had included 2 land activities to break up the monotony. We hiked up Gili Lawa Darat and went to Rinca Island.
Gili Lawa Darat was beautiful - the summit overlooked the cerulean blue waters and the terrain itself gave it a nice contrast. I have to admit that the hike up (about 30-45mins?) was tiring, especially after diving thrice in the day, but it was so worth it!
The descend was during sunset and having to watch the sunset while trekking back down was surreal. It felt like as if we were in the skies, with the egg-yolk sunset!
On the other hand, Rinca Island was pretty disappointing. Many would associate Komodo Island with komodo dragons and there is nothing wrong at all! We visited Rinca Island on the last day and that was well appreciated as we had been underwater for the past 4 days. For those of you who'd like to take a tour package to Rinca Island, you might want to think twice! Personally, I would have given it a miss as I wasn't particularly interested in the dragons, I was in fact more interested in the walking per se.
Total dive count was about 13 and we dived at Sebayor, Castle Rock, Crystal Rock, Shotgun, Gili Lawah, Batu Bolong, Karang Makassar Tatawa Kecil, Siaba Kecil and Pengah Kecil. I would safely say that in all the dives, you can be sure to be blessed with 20-30m visibility, and colourful corals. They are so well preserved that every dive underwater would never disappoint!
Some of my favourite dive sites would have been:
Gili Lawa Darat (night dive): saw Spanish Dancers (a large and colourful nudibranch!!!)
Makassar Reef: saw the sleeping white tip reef shark!
Tatawa Kecil: beautiful reef garden!
We were blessed with many turtles throughout the dives as well:
Beautiful corals and reef gardens:
I was also blessed with my favourite fish - nemo, and to have seen several white tip reef sharks, and even managed to be really up close to a sleeping one!
Our trip ended perfectly well with a BBQ by the beach on a secluded beach, where we were the only ones. The liveaboard operators brought bean bags onto the beach for us, and brought the food and prepared it with lots of love just for us. Nothing could have ended this trip any better :")
Thankful for leaning-Lin, who painstakingly researched about liveaboards with me and that's how we started our very first liveaboard together!
Thankful for my dive instructor, P, who took such great care of us and for everything that had happened :")
The total cost of the liveaboard amounted to about S$2000 which included all meals, equipment rental, gratuities and park fees. Considering that it included 13 dives, I would have done this again in a heartbeat!
Day 7
Exploring Labuan Bajo
We returned to Palm Komodo Hostel for 2 nights.
As we had not planned any activities to do, we went around looking for shops and their tour packages. There were SO MANY shops selling their tour packages. You indeed do not need to prepare beforehand! We were particularly interested in visiting Padar Island and we were merely looking out for packages going to Padar Island.
Padar Island is pretty out of the way, and as we were on a budget (IDR 335,000/person after negotiating), we could only take a slow (and SUPER ROCKY!) boat ride out to Padar Island. The slow boat ride there took about 3h there, and 3h back!
Accommodation: Palm Komodo (about S$20/night/person for a 5-man dorm)
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