the waterline is beautiful, but diving here is very different from places in Indonesia.
Different how?
At least on the east coast, there are mostly hard coral. The reef does not look as… fluffy as, say, around Halmahera. There are fan corals growing on some walls, but not that many. Lovers of Nudis or Lionfish will be disappointed, both are rarely seen, the latter only at night.
But the visibility is just great. I have never seen such clear, blue waters before.
There are numerous sharks. On most dives we encountered Grey Reef Sharks cruising below, White-Tipped Reef Sharks, and on one occasion during the surface interval we snorkelled with Giant Trevallies and Silky Sharks. We went looking for Hammerheads in the early morning, but apparently they were still asleep somewhere…
Dolphins came visiting the boat sometimes for a short moment.
It was so blue. Really, really blue as this:
And beautiful. Just look:
And let’s not forget the rock overhangs and caves we could dive into, like Thundercliff Dome:
I also had great dive guides and buddies. Celebrating some nice dives with a glass of wine (or two), and great food like Walter’s wonderful Ceviche:
Most days, the dive boat was captained by a baby…
hello,
really nice 🙂 seems like you really enjoy your trip.
greetings from southern munich, was raining the whole day yesterday (and no fun in munich at carnival), but at least today is “meteorologischer fruehlingsanfang” 😉
cheers,
— randy
Hi Randy,
I do hope spring is coming to Germany now… the cats will enjoy it;) Over here, we spent the last few days looking at Buddhist temples at 35C… almost a bit too much. Evenings were nice, though.
The Shire of Christmas Island – Patorikku’s Corner of the World
[…] diving group for the better part of a week. Which means (most of) her dives were mine and (most of) what she describes in her blog was experienced by me too. No idea where the music in her video comes from, though, I didn’t hear […]
Hi Inge,
I hope you’re well. It’s been two weeks since I’ve left Christmas Island and it’s taken me this long to sort my thoughts, sift through my pictures and finally hit the keys. Here it is, as spoken: https://www.patorikku.net/christmas-island/. Hope you like it.
Safe travels!
Patrick
Hi Patrick,
nice to hear from you! I had a look at your blog, and your photos are great! I fully agree to what you are saying about Xmas – it is a friendly and amazing place, and I will return there in December.
I’m currently in Yogyakarta, a stopover on my way home. I’m overdue to update my blog, but I need a lot of bandwith to create the entries for Raja Ampat – I have so many photos and videos to upload…
Currents at Xmas are nothing, compared to what I encountered at some Raja Ampat dive sites. You need a reef hook there to tether yourself to the reef lest you get swept away while you’re looking at something. There is a dive site called ‘The Passage’ where you just fly through with the current and just try not to hit the rocks. It is an amazing and beautiful place.
Btw – the music underlying my Xmas diving video is, sadly, just an iPad default tune. I would have liked to add my own music choice, but it wasn’t possible with the apps I’m using from abroad.
Wait for the Raja Ampat vids 😉