It was just a short sail out to an anchorage near Manta Point, the same place we had dived a few days earlier. We decided to give the drift another try, this time snorkeling, and see if we could get lucky and stumble onto some Mantas.

We spotted lots of day tour fast boats dropping off snorkelers and we thought maybe they had gotten into something interesting, but we never saw anything. The coral wasn’t very good at all, the visibility was mediocre, and it was soon clear that the day trippers were just being dropped off so they could float back to a sandy beach nearby.

We left that anchorage and headed for another nearby. Unfortunately, we found that there was almost no sandy bottom, and lots of coral. The shallow areas dropped off a cliff to deep water, and the winds howled off of the hill in front of us, as well. Sometimes anchoring just isn’t as straightforward as dropping it wherever you like and backing down on it. This spot required me getting in the water while Ali maneuvered the boat. With the anchor on the bottom I’d swim down, lift it up, and walk it over to the exact spot where I wanted it set. It’s a good workout at 20 feet. Once the anchor itself is secure in the right spot, the next step is to float the chain (tie buoys to the chain to lift it off the bottom) to keep it out of the coral. It took a good hour to get things situated, but by the end we knew the boat wasn’t going anywhere.

The next morning we could get an even better look at where we were anchored, from up above. Here the boat had floated forward directly over the top of the anchor.

That morning, with the winds still howling down off of the hills we decided we’d need to get out of there. But first, a quick dinghy across the bay to a shallow coral reef that was purported to be amazing.

Right before we hopped in I told Ouest to keep her eyes open for cuttlefish. She’d never seen one, so I explained it to her, and we set off. Literally one minute later she was waving me over.

These have to be one of the coolest looking creatures in the sea. There is something so mesmerizing about watching their wavy body hover and swim while their body constantly changes colors to camouflage them against whatever background they find themselves against.

The coral here really was spectacular. This would prove to be the best spot we’d see in Indonesia.

Unfortunately, the anchorage sucked and we had to move on.

Our view for much of the day.

And the view for much of the night. There are a lot of ships and small fishermen to navigate in these waters.