The islands south of Bali, that is where the big fish are. And that is where we were going. We planned three days of diving, hoping it would be enough to capture the majestic Mola mola on film. Since there is no Mola, also known as Ocean Sunfish, displayed above you might suspect we did not succeed. Indeed, no Mola ever presented itself to us. Nonetheless we did some magnificent diving: We have seen turtles, lots of schooling fish, a bamboo shark passed me by and marbled stingrays showed up from the deep. Like the one you see on this picture: As we were scanning the barren depths, hoping for something big to show up, we got lucky. Not before long this Giant Reef Ray gently glided through the water. Even better: It swam straight towards me. This was it. I knew I had one chance, 1 shot. I waited for it to swim into the right composition and pushed the shutter. It was rather dark as you can see. I was close to a depth of 37 metres, in unpredictable waters known for its crazy strong currents, down currents and washing machines.
On previous dives we witnessed vortices being formed, swirling up the sand in no time. It was very surreal. We were keen not to get into that kind of mess especially while holding our cameras, with no hands free to handle our BCD or even to hold on to something.
That is why, after the one shot I was able to take, I looked at the ray and bid him farewell.
“This will have to do”, I thought, and started to ascent.
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