Diving in Timor-Leste

I failed to make it out to Atauro Island, which was one of my biggest disappointments of the trip, but I was still able to get in a great dive from the mainland. I did a shore dive just outside Dili, where the tropical coastline made for a beautiful place to get into the water.

Shore Diving Near Dili

Once I got away from the beach, I immediately began seeing marine life. These two sucker fish were among the first animals I came across underwater.

Nearby, clownfish circled around an anemone. Even this close to Dili, there was plenty to see almost immediately after entering the water.

Underwater Colors

If you’ve read some of my other scuba diving pages, you’ve probably noticed me complaining about underwater colors and not having a strobe for my camera. In Timor-Leste I still didn’t have one, but this time the divemaster let me borrow his diving flashlight.

A diving light isn’t designed to replace a camera strobe, but it made an enormous difference whenever I could actually get the beam onto my subject while controlling my buoyancy and holding the camera steady. In the photo above, the red coral shows the difference clearly. Outside the flashlight’s reach, much of the natural color disappears at depth.

These strange formations reminded me of broccoli trees. They were much taller than the smaller subjects I had been photographing, so the flashlight could only illuminate a small section at a time.

Since these were smaller, the flashlight worked much better and I was happy with how the photos turned out. At the time I wasn’t sure of the exact species, but they were another example of just how much life I was finding during a single shore dive.

Sea Slugs, Fish & Cuttlefish

This sea slug was a new find for me, although unfortunately I missed it with the flashlight, so the photograph doesn’t show its true colors nearly as well.

Then there was this rather dramatic-looking fish staring out from a hole. For a moment I thought some giant eel or serpent was about to emerge and attack me, but thankfully it turned out to be considerably less exciting.

Another new species for me was this cuttlefish. When we first spotted it, its camouflage and eyes made me think I was looking at an octopus.

Once it finally swam out into the open, there was no mistaking what it was.

One Very Uncooperative Seahorse

Above was another smaller sea slug, but the next animal gave me considerably more trouble.

This prickly seahorse may have been one of the most annoying seahorses in all the world’s oceans. Every time I swam around to photograph one side, it would turn the opposite direction and expose nothing but its back. I finally managed to get this decent shot, but without the flashlight. It appears almost white in the photograph even though it was actually red.

Lionfish

One of the highlights of the dive was finding two different lionfish. Before this trip, I’d only seen one in Egypt without getting any photos, followed by another in Yemen where I managed a pretty poor shot.

These guys were much more cooperative. They simply hung around the ocean floor and coral and didn’t seem bothered by me swimming close enough to photograph them. It was a great ending to a dive that showed me how much marine life Timor-Leste has to offer—even without ever making it out to Atauro Island.