By: Fakhrizal S

On the first day and at the beginning of the dive I was met with an amazing spot where visibility was very good with thousands of antias fish covered in damselfish milling around everywhere in my heart saying "welcome to Indonesia's underwater paradise". Unfortunately, this paradise was cut short by dozens of bubu or traditional traps set in the coral reef area. About 12 traps could be seen throughout the dive and this does not include those installed in the deep.

The second day of the morning was greeted with a dolphin dance at the bow of the boat making the morning lively. The conditions changed drastically, the sea conditions were bumpy and it was difficult for the first dive team to get a GPS position with the Menami boat so we missed 1 point north of the location outside the Alor MPA, the large compressor had been broken since the first day adding to the length of the obstacles in this Solar expedition.

Changes to the line-up had to be made immediately where it was finally decided that the team at three meters would only use snorkels and it turned out that changes were made again after one member of the coral team had sea sickness. The toughest condition was decided not to take data at shallow depths, aka 3 meters. Finally, both teams departed using one small boat (dinghy) that could only accommodate a maximum of 8 people.