our final day, sadly, on the boat was another big snorkeling day. we hit three different spots.
first, we went to the famous pantai merah (pink beach) on komodo island.
pink beach was nice, and although it's very popular, wasn't crowded either.although arriving at about 6:30am does help.
it had lots of nice coral.
and interesting colors.
more turtles.
this is a favorite of mine. it's so clear.
based on the coloring and shape of this turtle, we believe it's a hawksbill, which we had never seen before. so exciting!
a sting ray.
a closer up of the sting ray.
i like how it looks like my head is photoshopped into these background images. it looks fake, but i was actually there.
another hawksbill!
me diving down to see it more closely.
more huge and beautiful clam shells.
me diving down again.
now we are at our second spot--manta point. this was an interesting place to snorkel. we were not near an island or beach. we were simply in a relatively shallow part right in the middle of the ocean. it felt a little scary at first (when you looked at where you were above water), but once you were down in it it was fine.
it's named manta point because there tend to be a lot of mantas there. sadly, we didn't see any while we were snorkeling. but b and i did see one from the boat as we were getting to our spot. and we've all seen mantas before, so it wasn't like if we wouldn't have seen a komodo dragon!
here is the big cowrie shell that roland found on the sea floor and b dove down and grabbed. it was gorgeous.
and very alive. you can see the animal coming out over the side of the shell.
b safely put it back down on the sea floor.
there was good coral and fish.
look at all of those fish.
b took a couple selfies to prove he was there.
i like this one the most.
long, skinny fish.
a neat natural bridge in the water.
now we've arrived at our third, and final, snorkeling spot for our trip. this was at a small island off the coast of flores.
here is w with a large clam shell he found. he loved those big shells.
some pilings in the water.
i wonder how long they'd been under the water. i imagine that things start to grow pretty quickly.
these are cool ones. we always liked seeing the tiny fish around the coral heads.
a cool reflection image of the sea floor.
me scoping things out.
cathy and roro exploring together.
b figured out how to use the video function on our camera at this spot. so we have some videos too.
there were tons of these chocolate chip star fish there.
they are really fun looking.
a star fish video.
cathy showing off a lovely shell.
a great shot. i love this one of cathy and roland.
always nice to see the outline of the mask on my face. the only problem b and i have with our snorkeling equipment is that it the mask just pushes against your forehead right between your eyebrows. you can see the mark on my face there. with as much snorkeling as we do on trips like this, that spot gets very sore. but one thing i've always enjoyed about being sore (from running, lifting weights, hiking, etc) is how good it feels to massage that sore place. out of the water, when we're done snorkeling, i like to massage that spot on my face. it feels so painful, yet good.
a shell i saw and dove down and grabbed.
a lovely horizon.
w was very proud of this shell that he found near the shoreline. sadly, for him though, it was still alive.
we explored the shore for awhile too--looking for shells and talking. as we were about to put our masks back on and snorkel back out to our boat, we saw a little reef shark. it was only about 1-1.5 feet long, and it would have been neater to see it underwater while we were snorkeling, but we still saw it!
when we made it back to the boat, b jumped off the top deck twice. our guide took the pictures and got a little bit of him. to his credit, though, it is difficult to time action shots like this well.
once b got back in the boat after his second jump, we headed back to labuan bajo. our vacation boat time was about to be over...or was it!?
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