Gili Lawa
Laut, North Komodo
There are three great dives to the North of Komodo island of Gili
Lawa Laut - Crystal Rock, Castle Rock and Lighthouse. All sites
have good hard and soft coral cover, and swarms of schooling fish.
Lighthouse has a “honey hole” on the point, which is
home to school of sweetlips and bathfish. Mantas are frequently
in evidence on the safety stop here.
Crystal Rock is a pinnacle that just breaks the surface off the
northern side of the two small islets to the north of Komodo main
island. It is another excellent dive site and very similar topographically
to the famous GPS Point.
The reef is packed with bronze and rust coloured sponges and soft
tree corals. The shallows host thousands of anthias and damselfish,
large cuttlefish, pyramid butterflyfish, hawksbill turtles and several
red octopus.
On the north west side of the pinnacle is a submerged mound that
rises to 14 metres or so, with a 20 metre deep saddle between the
two. Due to the strong easterly currents you'll need to make a quick
descent to reach this area in anything other than slack tide conditions
but the reward can be worth the effort since there is always great
schooling action here. There are schools of yellow-ribbon sweetlips,
black snappers, bluefin and bigeye trevally, and whitetip reef sharks.
One kilometre further north from Crystal Rock is Castle Rock, another
submerged mound. This site is even more exposed to the prevailing
Komodo currents but for the experienced diver this is a exceptional
treat. Whitetips, blacktips, grey reef sharks and giant trevally
all frequent this site. The fish life is simply stunning with groupers,
midnight snappers and frequent schools of fusiliers passing through.
In recent times a pod of bottlenose dolphins have made this spot
one of their favourite hunting grounds, and you can often see them
on a dive. These creatures are amazingly agile at work and to watch
them in their natural environment is an experience not to be missed.
The Passage between Gili Lawa Laut and Gili Lawa Darat islands is
a good option for a late afternoon or sunset dive as the bottom
is only 20 metres or so deep. Currents can be very strong but the
narrow strait often hosts several manta rays, and mobula rays that
hunt the silversides in the shallows.
Strong currents can prevent dives on Gili Lawa and the correct conditions
must exist before undertaking any dive here. One of the delights
of diving in Indonesia is that the area is so large and the dive
sites so numerous that it is possible to come across fantastic sites
which are still relatively unchartered.
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