December 2, 2018

Komodo – Tatawa Kecil – The Surf From Below

This is the first of two posts sharing underwater photography from one particularly nice dive at Tatawa Kecil, in Komodo National Park. We were able to dive on the west side of the small island (see the photo just below) during a transition of tidal currents from the east to the west. Ordinarily dives are not done on the side of the island that is being hit by the strong currents surging between the Pacific and Indian oceans, but our shallow depth allowed us to do this dive safely. It was one of my favorite dives during my time in Indonesia because I could concentrate on looking for interesting shots and using the camera (operating the camera controls requires some effort because of the underwater housing) – on most other dives I was helping to keep track of day divers as part of the divemaster training.

This post has a group of photos showing the undulating underside of waves and swells just as they are approaching and hitting the edge of the island. In my next post I’ll share photos of some of the beautiful table corals not far below the surface. Samira and I took our cameras into very shallow water – we were just 5-10 feet (about 2-3 meters) deep, and sometimes almost at the surface. Near the surface you let your body rise and fall with the waves coming in just above you – producing a kind of gentle rocking movement. With the neutral buoyancy, or weightlessness, of scuba diving, letting your body go with this motion is quite a beautiful experience.

The reflections off the underside of the swells and waves that were just above and hitting the rocky edge of the island were visually fascinating. In one spot I watched for several minutes trying to make sense of the reverse shapes of the swells as they passed overhead. In some of the photographs you can make out the fractured reflections of corals below the mirror-like underside of the undulating water. In others the reflections of the darker deeper surrounding water produce the impression of a foreboding sky hovering over the corals.

Tatawa Kecil is a very small island in the central part of Komodo National Park. The photographs in this post were taken just below the water’s surface at the west side of the island, on the right in this photo (which was taken on a calmer day!).

Here you can see the silvery underside of a wave as it rolls in and crashes on a large rock.

The green table coral on the lower right can be seen in the reflection off the underside of the water at the top of the photo, directly above it. Other less colorful corals can also be made out in the reflection. The swells and breaking waves are a little farther away in a kind of reverse visual world.

The swirl of a breaking wave is in the center of this photo. Corals closer to the camera are fractured in the reflections off the water’s underside directly above.