The seas around Nusa Tenggara archipelago in Indonesia are among the most unpredictable and dangerous in the tropics. This is the area where the Indian and Pacific oceans meet, where cold water wells up from the abyss, creating a mosaic of tidal races and whirlpools. There is little boat traffic, save for local subsistence fishermen and the occasional ferry. For a lost diver drifting at the surface, it is a hostile environment.

Komodo Island - famous for its giant lizards, known as Komodo dragons – sits at the heart of the archipelago, and has some of the best dives in SouthEast Asia. The colour and diversity of the reefs is astonishing but I was even more awestruck by the currents.

Fast skiffs or inflatables deposit divers in high-energy areas, then pick them up one by one as they surface. But Komodo plays tricks on divers: currents can converge and separate and there are eddies here that can propel a diver downwards, known as “down-currents”.

Komodo is no place for novices. If divers are separated under water it can be hard for the boatmen to follow their bubbles. Ideally, they should be carrying marker buoys to indicate their positions, but if a boatman gets distracted, a seven or eight-knot current can carry the divers out of sight quickly.

The water is surprisingly cool, and as the hours go by it has a weakening effect, sapping heat away far more quickly than air. Even as the cold sets in, they will also suffer from the sunburn, as the equatorial sun here is unforgiving. They will at least have lifejackets; all divers wear devices that can be filled with air.

Sharks are undeniably a worry, especially with the growing paranoia and feeling of helplessness that comes when you are drifting at the surface. However, many of the big sharks in this area have been fished out for the shark-fin soup industry. The only dangerous species around Nusa Tenggara are the oceanic white-tip and the silky shark, both ocean-going predators with a natural sense of curiosity. I never saw any of these sharks during my dives there; in this instance, the water is the primary threat.

A fee for this article has been donated to the RNLI at the request of the author, who is the editor of Dive magazine.

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