Dive #544

Notes

Did a day trip up to Mantanani Island with a couple of boat dives as the feature. The whole thing isn't really set up for experienced divers — the predominant crowd was Chinese tourists there for DSDs and snorkelling. That said, the dive staff were very friendly, the boat was comfortable, and we were able to convince them a 40-minute dive was too short. While we were still beholden to the day's schedule and the two open water divers on the boat's air consumption, we managed to get the planned dive duration stretched out another 10 minutes anyhow. The rumours are true — the waters around the islands were great, easily 20m+ with very healthy corals. It looked like they have spent a lot of time trying to look after the reef, with makeshift coral plantings at both dive sites. Fish life was pretty good, but on the first dive I was underweight and couldn't breathe fully and maintain neutral buoyancy, so it was fairly uncomfortable.