Scuba diving in Komodo National Park: Dive logs

I’ve scuba dived more than a hundred times to date and been to some amazing places, and while I have yet to do a full trip dedicated to scuba diving in Komodo National Park, what I’ve seen so far has been quite amazing. If you are an avid scuba diver and planning a trip to Komodo, definitely spend least a day out to do some dives, I promise you it is worth it.

Here are some of my dive logs on places I dived in Komodo National Park when I first visited in 2016 and again in 2025.

My dives so far have take place in the central area which is close to the tourist spots like Padar Island and Komodo National Park. There are also dive sites in the north (typically open March to November) and in the south (better for November to December).

Batu Bolong

Batu Bolong is one of the best known dive sites in the Komodo National Park area for good reason the sheer amount of marine life that you can find here – it’s like scuba diving in an aquarium! If you have time for only one dive site here, make it Batu Bolong.

Batu Bolong above the water is a tiny island covered in grass and lots of seabirds along with the hole that gives it its name, but beneath the surface is a pillar of rock that features steep walls covered in coral and fish. It is a challenging dive site as it is where strong currents meet – I wouldn’t recommend this for newbie divers – but these currents also bring a lot of nutrients which is why there are so many fish here.

This dive basically involves dropping down into the water and then slowly zigzagging your way upwards along the wall.

I dived here in 2016 for the first time and was wowed by the sheer number of fish here, particularly as you get a bit higher up and there are thousands of little red fusilier fish in the corals in the shallow bits. So beautiful even if the visibility wasn’t the greatest. We didn’t dive here for very long in 2016 as we didn’t have a lot of air left in the tank, but even that short dive was very memorable.

On my 2025 dive, we spotted a large turtle pretty much as soon as we descended the ‘chimney’, which is a narrow gap between the rocks. From there, two white-tipped sharks started circling below us, and another large turtle was spotted along the rocks. We even found a moray eel in the midst of moving. Also spotted some very large fish here, including a Napoleon Wrasse.

Manta Point / Mawan

There are manta cleaning stations in Komodo National Park and if you come at the right season (December to March during the rainy season), you might see a whole school of mantas swimming along if you are lucky!

I have not been so lucky, both in 2016 and 2025 there were no mantas at the cleaning station. There is a lot of broken coral here in a mini caldera of sorts though, remnants of past days when dynamite fishing was still allowed. The visibility here was very nice though, and we did spot more turtles and even one shy shark that darted away very quickly.

I did have an amazing experience diving with manta rays when I was in the Maldives though – that was really special!

Pink Beach

You can dive around the famous pink beach area, but I mostly remember it in 2016 being depressingly murky though it cleared up later on. It’s a drift dive site.

Siaba Kecil

Siaba Kecil or Small Siaba was our first dive spot in 2025, a drift dive site so we barely had to do much finning. Our total drift perhaps took about 15 mins or so – apparently on a really strong current day it takes just 5 minutes!

I liked the end of the dive in the shallows where there is a whole sea of red coral and we found lots of turtles around here. It’s close to Siaba Besar (Big Siaba) and a popular snorkelling spot.

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Have you dived in Komodo National Park or around Labuan Bajo? Tell me what I’m missing!