3 new guy training to survive in the harsh blue sea at Sekotong island.

Sekotong Sea Diving

Sekotong, West Lombok, 2023

Immanuel Raynaldo (M 2023 898 ATM)
Gabriel Genigno Pranoto (M 2022 891 ATM)
Tio Patrick Wicaksono (M 2022 897 ATM)
Esyela Fransisca Artarumiris ()

Sekotong is one of the regions in West Lombok Regency, consisting of several islands such as Gili Gede, Gili Rengit, Gili Layar, and others. Although it is not as famous as its neighbor, Gili Matra, Sekotong also offers an underwater charm that is no less beautiful than that region.

Finally, the awaited moment arrived — our try-out day. After completing our sea training at Gili Matra, we immediately headed to Gili Gede, where we were picked up by Pak Ajis, a diving instructor as well as the boat captain who would accompany us exploring Sekotong with his small boat. Upon arriving at Gili Gede, we were welcomed by Bu Elis with a warm smile, the owner of the place where we would stay during our time on the island. We spent the first day taking care of permits with the village chief and building a camp craft for our accommodation.

As an archipelagic region, Sekotong has great potential for marine tourism, such as beautiful coral reefs and smooth white sandy beaches. Finally, the time came for us to start diving. On the first day of diving, we explored the area around Gili Layar. Each designated dive spot had its own unique terrain. Gili Gede Wall had a steep wall terrain, causing strong underwater currents, but it offered a diversity of marine life to enjoy. Sandy Slope, on the other hand, had a sloping terrain composed mostly of sand, resulting in poor visibility, but many micro marine species could still be observed.

Between dives, we stopped for a while at Gili Layar to wait for our surface interval while having lunch on the island. However, we were disturbed by a big cow, which Tio managed to chase away using a branch.

On the second day of diving, we explored the area around Gili Rengit. In the morning, dark clouds covered Lombok, making us worried about continuing the dive. After collecting our tanks and gearing up, the clouds disappeared, although the wind kept blowing strongly, causing high waves.

While waiting for our diving buddies, we usually monitored bubbles while joking around and eating biscuits given by Kak Ajis. However, due to the unfavorable weather, bubbles became difficult to spot, and we often lost their direction.

That night, we said our goodbyes to Bu Elis and the local men who liked to hang around at her place. From there, we learned stories about the activities and livelihoods of the people of Gili Gede. Many residents of Gili Gede are compressor divers, where they dive using heavy stones to reach the bottom while searching for clams and ascend by being pulled up with their hoses, and Pak Ajis was one of the former divers. Many of them end up paralyzed or even die due to decompression sickness.

The next day marked the last day of our dives. We only managed to do two dives because there was an issue with tank refilling, forcing us to wait until noon. Despite several mishaps during the dives, such as forgetting to bring the measuring tape and the SMB getting tangled during mark deployment, we felt that the last two dive spots were the most interesting ones during our time in Sekotong. At each site, there were unique dancing fish, and on the final dive, we encountered two different species of moray eels.

We spent the last night on Lontar Island (Monkey Island) because there were only monkeys there. We built a camp craft, lit a bonfire, and slept on the beach under the stars while thinking about what would happen the next day.

The following day, we boarded our beloved boat for the last time, enjoying the beautiful morning sunrise at sea, and were picked up by a Hiace to be taken to Lombok International Airport to board a flight to Soekarno-Hatta Airport. In Jakarta, we stopped by a diving equipment store to fix the leaking regulator hose, had KFC for a meal, and then continued our journey back to Bandung for equipment cleaning and evaluation.