Location: Golden Passage, Komodo
Hey Y’all! It’s Anabelle back with another amazing update of our life here on Argo. To start off our morning, we had an early wake-up at 5 am to set off on our sunrise hike. We put our hiking skills to the test by climbing up literal mountains to one of the highest peaks in Gili Lawa Darat. We got up there in about 15 minutes to sunrise, enjoying some stars and early views while we waited. Around 6:45, we did the hike back down the mountain and dinghied on over to the boat for breakfast. After breakfast, we sailed over to Makassar Reef, where we did a drift dive. This dive was absolutely amazing.
We had a wall of reefs on our left shoulders, and to our right was deeper water where many sharks, sea turtles, and stingrays swam past. On this dive, we saw about five sea turtles. Among those, one was sitting under a reef shelf, just looking at us and being the cutest thing ever. Needless to say, we got tons of selfies with it. Down below is a picture of a blue-spotted stingray! Isn’t it beautiful?! This dive was our last of the season and the last dive for Steph as a Sea|Mester staff. This dive was in my top 5 dives I have done so far.
After everyone got their dive in, we had lunch and then relocated to look for Manta Rays. When we pulled into the bay, there were a whole bunch of people located smack in the middle, and they were freaking out, so we knew there were mantas around. But then the most amazing thing happened! Instead of us having to go over and share the water with another tourist, a manta swam right next to Argo! We all jumped in as fast as we could and swam over to it. I have never seen a manta in real life and it was so cute and big! We swam along with it for a couple of minutes when I looked down to my right, and another manta began to meet up with his friend and swim. We continued to follow them, mind you, they swam very fast, and another one appeared!!! The three of them swam together, coming closer to the surface ever so often. This went on for about 30 minutes, and I think we saw about six different Mantas. It was the best part of this trip by far! Everyone was so happy and in a good mood that I think it’s safe to say that it made everyone’s day! After swimming with Mantas, we came back to our little nook and anchored. Dinner was served, and after, we voted for our leaders in our student-led passage. The four lucky people to be chosen for our passage are as follows: Skipper- Sidney, First mate- Beck, Nav Master- Lexy, and finally, Engineer- Iain. Congratulations to our candidates!
Love you, momma, daddy, Madi, Mary Jane, and Garrison! Miss y’all.