Before anyone goes to Derawan and gets disappointed I should note certain things.
Everyone saw Barracuda and whale sharks, but about half the boat didn’t see mantas, probably because the viz was 15-20m. Only about one third of the boat saw hammers, threshers, leopards or white tips. I saw the white tips but didn’t get good video of them, so I missed out on thresher and hammers.
There were 24 guests on my trip, organised into 6 dive groups and there were three tenders, so everyone was either in the first three tenders or in the second three tenders. I was not impressed by the way the boat organised group rotations. Whilst, the Blue Manta rotated dive groups on every dive, the White Manta only rotated groups daily. So if you were in the first group of three on one day, you would be in the second group of three on the next day. The hammers and threshers were on Kakaban where there is a wall and the sharks were deep and slightly in the blue. So if you were not just in the first group of three, but also in the first two of those three dive groups you would have the best chances of seeing the sharks. The noise and activity of the divers would drive the sharks away …… I would say don’t go with the expectation of seeing hammers and threshers.
Everyone saw Barracuda and whale sharks, but about half the boat didn’t see mantas, probably because the viz was 15-20m. Only about one third of the boat saw hammers, threshers, leopards or white tips. I saw the white tips but didn’t get good video of them, so I missed out on thresher and hammers.
There were 24 guests on my trip, organised into 6 dive groups and there were three tenders, so everyone was either in the first three tenders or in the second three tenders. I was not impressed by the way the boat organised group rotations. Whilst, the Blue Manta rotated dive groups on every dive, the White Manta only rotated groups daily. So if you were in the first group of three on one day, you would be in the second group of three on the next day. The hammers and threshers were on Kakaban where there is a wall and the sharks were deep and slightly in the blue. So if you were not just in the first group of three, but also in the first two of those three dive groups you would have the best chances of seeing the sharks. The noise and activity of the divers would drive the sharks away …… I would say don’t go with the expectation of seeing hammers and threshers.