June 2025

Flying out of Gatwick (North) for this trip. I got an excellent liveaboard deal with Scuba Travel on Solitude Adventurer which allows me to strike one more awesome dive location from my bucket list. Also booked overnight stays, both sides of the liveaboard, actually in Bali hotels - when I arrive in Bali in the evening for a brief overnight before flying to Komodo the next morning, I have booked the Novotel which is a 5 minute walk from the terminal, on the return from Komodo to Bali I have a little more time so I have booked overnight at the Bali Relaxing Resort and Spa and also pre-booked taxis for the short journey from the airport and back to the airport the next day for the evening flight from Bali to Dubai.

Visited Stoney cove on 9th May for a couple of shake down dives. Mainly, having just had my Regs serviced I wanted to be sure they worked OK. Regs were perfect but Dive Computer battery needed changing and my main torch didn't work, proving the shake down dives worthwhile. Changed the battery in the Dive Computer and all good, charged the torch battery and not all good as it still didn't work. Charged my other battery for the torch and still didn't work. I guess a new torch is required! Still, good to find out these things before the holiday and not when I arrive!

After the camera issues I had on my previous trips I have now invested in a new camera set up. I bought and Olympus TG7 with waterproof housing, a camera tray for it to sit in and a Lenton Power Sealion L15 underwater torch to attach to one of the arms. Will likely add another torch at some point to the other arm, probably one with fibre-optic connection for the flash, but thats for the future. Also purchased was a Backscatter M52 Underwater 81deg Wide Air Lens. I'll be testing all this new kit out on this trip. I hope I get some good images to share!