Dive #538, the last of a five week dive safari that started in peninsular Malaysia, focused primarily on the Komodo Straight and ended with short stops in Gili Trawangan and Nusa Lembongan. Being scheduled on a ferry to Bali at 12:30, it would be a little bit of a rush to try and get in a morning dive but I signed up anyway. The tide was projected to be as high as it had been in years, thanks to the full moon, and if we didnt time things correctly the site might have to be abandoned as too dangerous. We were heading out to the Blue Corner, a site known for ripping currents and a place where people are lost pretty much annually, being ripped off the reef and pushed into the depths by a strong down current and then swept out to sea by tidal flows that can exceed seven or eight knots. When we had been there a few days ago, the current was strong but not unmanageable but todays tidal chart gave me pause. Also, the visibility hadnt been that great either, both reducing the chances of seeing the large marine life that enjoys big currents (read: sharks and other large pelagics) and increasing the likelihood of team members drifting out of sight and getting lost. When we got to the boat the swell was huge, at least 4 meters if not 6, and the surfers were loving the offshore break. We had to time our boarding as the boat heaved in the waves and I managed to smash my thigh I to the outboard motor while getting in. That will hurt for a while. Another sign that maybe this morning was shaping up to be another scene from Bad Idea Theater? At least all my gear seemed to be present and accounted for. By the time we got out to the dive site things had calmed down somewhat, approaching high slack tide, and we jumped in to make a quick descent before the surface current carried us off the site. It seemed that we had timed the dive well, as the current was very manageable and the visibility exceeded twenty meters or so. After swimming the the shoulder of the reef I immediately dropped down to around 40 meters or so to start checking under some of the overhangs for sleeping sharks. What little down current coming across the reef was over my head at this point, so I only had to drift with the current pushing me along the reef. Nevertheless, I finned a little so that I could make better use of what little bottom time I had at that depth. Unfortunately I couldnt find any sharks and as my decompression limit approached I knew I would have to start ascending. When it hit two minutes I reluctantly started moving back up the wall to rejoin my team, who had been watching me (or my bubble column) from a shallower depth of about twenty five meters. A few minutes later, as I approached their depth, my guide started making some emphatic noise and pointing towards the blue behind me. Turning around I could only make out a dim, disc-like shape moving slowly towards us with the current that had changed direction while we were in the water. What a strange looking fish, I thought, what was it? And then it hit me, it was a Mola Mola! Although still very early in the season, they had been seen recently and was the very reason I scheduled the short visit, in the hopes of seeing one for the first time. With this recognition, I immediately swam off the reef as fast as I could, dropped down about five meters to its level and damned any decompression obligation I might incur. This was, after all, why I had two tanks with me. It was amazing and truly among the strangest looking fish, they are among the cruel jokes of evolution, to be sure. Almost as big as me, not quite full grown, and lacking much of any tail to speak of, the creature was swimming slowly but deliberately, flapping its vertically oriented, wing-like fins with the determination of a developmentally challenged child in a kiddy pool. I couldnt get over how weird it looked, even though I had seen pictures and even a baby, once, in the Monterey Bay aquarium before they transferred it back to the ocean. My guide was banging his tank again, this time to encourage me to swim back to the reef and rejoin the group, which was now well out of sight. I had started counting up deco time by then and so I have one parting look at the Sunfish and began kicking my way back to the reef and slowly up. By the end of the dive my deco time had washed out in the shallows and I surfaced normally, thankful that I had chanced going out one more time in challenging conditions at the very end of a long and already memorable trip. In addition to finally taking a trip with the renowned Siren Fleet, the past ten weeks have seen me face to face with loads of different sharks, dozens of manta rays, turtles, Komodo dragons and now the near-mythological Mola Mola! Do take a few minutes to check out the Wikipedia page on the Ocean Sunfish and appreciate this wondrous freak of nature that I was lucky enough to swim with this morning --
Posted on: Fri, 27 Jun 2014 07:12:57 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015