In September 2012 Kelly and I did a week long liveaboard dive trip in Indonesia which went from Bali to Komodo and back. We went on the MV Mermaid II. Click here to read about the boat. This is one of the dive sites we did on the trip. The trip heads north-east from Benoa Harbour on Bali out north of Lombok and then north of the other islands to Komodo Island and then down the eastern side of Komodo to the southernmost point of Komodo. For all dives on this trip we used 31% Nitrox, so bear this in mind when considering the bottom times we did.

Sangeang Island (Pulau Sangeang) is located off the north-eastern corner of Sumbawa Island. It is home to an active volcano called Sangeang Api. The volcano is the almost perfect conical shape, and as such, the island is circular. It is almost uninhabited, about 15 kilometres in diameter and 1,949 metres high. It last erupted in 1989. This site is off the north-western side of the island. An approximate GPS mark for the dive spot is 8º 8' 32.5"S 119º 1' 39.4"E (using WGS84 as the datum). The site is towards the shore from the GPS mark.

A satellite photo from Google Earth that shows the location of the dive site GPS is where the arrow is	A photo of the site

The actual site is located off a black sand/rocky beach. The site consists of a sloping black sand bottom with some small coral bommies. The depth starts at 10 metres and drops gradually to 30 metres and then there is a shear drop to perhaps 40 or more metres.

A map of the dive site - north is at the bottom left corner of the map Used courtesy of Mermaid Cruises

As with virtually all dive sites that you do when on MV Mermaid II, you use the RIB (rigid inflatable boat) to get to the start of the dive (and also to get back to the boat). The RIB will drop you in about 8 metres on the sand at the southern end of the site.

As soon as we are on the bottom we descend gradually down the slope (north-west) till we reach about 31 metres, just above the drop-off. The bommies have lots of gorgonias and barrel sponges. The drop-off appears to be a sand wall, not a coral reef. Once at the drop-off, we head towards the south and following the drop-off we gradually start an ascent towards the shallows as the edge turns to the south and the shore.

Tikno Reef	A very large barrel sponge
Kelly and a large gorgonia	A leaf fish

There is a lot of black coral at this site (black coral is, despite the name, white when alive) and mostly located on the sand off the wall. There are some gorgonias and soft corals as well as hard corals. There are lots of sea whips, most of which have gobies living on them.

We see a few orangutan crabs (in anemones) and hawkfish in among the gorgonias. After about 50 minutes we are in the shallows and there are lots of anemones and clownfish. We also find a leaf fish in the shallows.

As on all these dives, there are numerous species of nudibranchs. We also see mantis shrimps, a ornate ghost pipefish and firefish.

Firefish	Carlsons halgerda
Crested nembrotha	Briareum phyllodesmium

This was another great first site with visibility of 25 metres. The water temperature was about 27ºC.

Click here to return to the list of sites we did on our MV Mermaid II trip.