Pengah Kecil

Overview

Pengah Kecil is a small rocky island in central Komodo National Park whose dive site, in the words of La Galigo Liveaboard, protrudes from an impressive underwater pinnacle. La Galigo places it about 4 kilometres north of central Rinca island. PADI's dive guide, whose text it credits to the member Dive Komodo, calls it a pinnacle dive around a small island and gives the position -8.57715, 119.68050, which is the point used here; OpenStreetMap marks Pengah Kecil about 40 metres from that point.

How the site is dived

La Galigo describes slopes, mini walls and plateaus, with a mix of hard corals, soft corals and fish, and says the site is dived on the north or the south side of the island depending on the current on the day; PADI says it is usually dived on the side protected from the current. La Galigo's plan starts with a back-roll entry onto the slope at 5 metres, drops to a plateau at 10 metres to look for whitetip reef sharks, then visits the mini wall and small plateaus on the eastern side, which drop to around 25 metres, before zig-zagging back up the slope. The dive ends on a small shallow plateau on the western side, a coral garden that La Galigo singles out as one of the most beautiful parts of the site; PADI also describes a shallow coral garden on the west side. La Galigo gives the maximum depth as 27 metres and says the underwater pinnacle starts at 27 metres; this record uses 27 metres as a single-source maximum.

Marine life

Both sources name whitetip reef sharks resting under table or plate corals: La Galigo calls them a resident population on the main plateau, and PADI mentions baby whitetips on the west side. La Galigo names turtles and moray eels as among the most numerous residents, whip coral shrimp and pygmy seahorses as the most sought after, and eagle rays, jacks, bumphead parrotfish, frogfish and other shrimps. PADI lists turtles, giant morays, bumphead parrotfish, groupers, banded sea kraits, Napoleon wrasse, whip coral shrimps and nudibranchs.

Conditions and level

La Galigo says the site is a little exposed to the ocean, so visibility can be hit and miss, and gives the typical current as medium, able to increase to strong. These are operator statements, not measurements. Neither source gives a difficulty level, water temperature, visibility range or season that this record uses.