Komodo snorkeling is amazing and varied. We have visited twice now, once in 2019 and once in 2025 and both times found abundant sea life on gorgeous coral reefs, along with the big creatures it is known for, like manta rays and sea turtles.
Komodo National Park is the main attraction, though there are areas outside the park boundary that offer incredible snorkeling too. The east side of the park, east of the main island of Komodo, has definitely been discovered and can be quite busy with day boats and liveaboards. In this area the snorkeling is remarkable and varied. West of Komodo Island is much less crowded and offers an equally exciting experience.
Nearly all of the snorkeling on both sides of Komodo is accessed by day boat or liveaboard, so be prepared for that. If you have good guides who know the best Komodo snorkeling spots, you will find stunning reefs with healthy corals and teeming with reef fish and larger pelagic fish, myriad anemones and their resident anemonefish, and interesting creatures, like cuttlefish, octopus, giant clams, colorful small nudibranchs, and crocodilefish.
Of course, Komodo is famous for its Komodo Dragons, and you can take walking tours on both sides of the park to see them up close and personal. It is a treat to see these giants in the wild.
Komodo Snorkeling Video
Watch our Komodo snorkeling video below. It will give you a sense of what fish and larger creatures you will see, as well as some of the interesting and colorful coral formations.
Where Is Komodo?
Komodo is in southern Indonesia. It is an area between the two larger islands of Sumbawa and Flores.
Komodo National Park encompasses three large islands, Komodo, Padar and Rinca, and 26 smaller ones. It protects the largest lizard on the planet, the Komodo Dragon, and the park also is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that protects a large marine area.
In the West Komodo area there are a couple large islands outside the park boundary that offer outstanding snorkeling, Gili Banta and Sangeang Volcano.
All these islands are within the Coral Triangle, which is the most bio-diverse marine environment on Earth.
How Did We Access Komodo Snorkeling?
For both of our visits we joined Komodo snorkeling trips organized by our friend and trips partner. On our first trip, in 2019, we stayed at a resort near the east side of the park. We took boat trips into the park everyday to snorkel reefs and visit manta ray cleaning stations.
On our 2025 Komodo snorkeling trip, we stayed at Kalimaya Resort on the island of Sumbawa and took daily boat trips out to snorkel spots on Komodo, Gili Banta, Sangeang, and more.
In the future we plan to join a snorkeler-only liveaboard trip to explore both east and west Komodo, organized by our partner.
What Komodo Snorkeling Is Like
East Komodo
The bustling east side of Komodo park has a lot of fun snorkeling to experience. This area is known for having a number of manta ray cleaning stations, and several times we were able to witness these giant beautiful fish gliding easily through the water, and frequently saw smaller rays, and eagle rays in the same areas.
We also visited a reef known to be a sea turtle area, and probably saw twenty, either resting in the hard corals or coming up for air. They were Green Sea Turtles at this reef, but on other reefs we would also occasionally see rarer Hawksbill Sea Turtles too. They were quite large turtles, generally bigger than we see in Hawaii.
Coral life is amazing in east Komodo. Massive fields of both soft and hard corals covered every surface of the sea floor and walls on some reefs, in stunning colors and variety. And from spot to spot the coral life and overall reef appearance was very different. The picture below is one of the largest and oldest table corals we have ever seen. Nicole got a picture of Galen hovering over it to help show the scale of it (he was not touching it).
Fish life was pretty spectacular on the reefs too. There were lots of parrotfish and other reef fish in abundance, like angelfish, damselfish, gobies, and many varieties of anemonefish. Redbreasted Wrasses were a treat to see and giant Titan Triggerfish were common. Numerous species of lionfish were commonly seen, and are native to these waters, so not a scourge.
We found giant moray eels a number of times. We saw some of the biggest trevally, and pufferfish we have ever seen. They were easily two or three times the size of similar fish that we have seen in the Pacific. We found a Crocodilefish, which was large and seemed primordial. Large schools of brightly colored fusiliers were on many Komodo snorkeling reefs. They are always a treat to see, and one of Nicole’s favorite fish.
Octopus and cuttlefish can both be seen on the reefs of Komodo. We watched the cuttlefish above for some time and saw it change colors many times. Beautiful small nudibranchs were fairly common, as were gorgeous colored tunicates, giant clams and some cool little crabs. And we often saw large colorful Peacock Mantis Shrimps. Feather Stars were abundant in a broad array of stunning colors, and so were a variety of beautiful sponges and algae.
West Komodo
The quieter west side of Komodo park, along with Gili Banta, Sangeang Volcano, and a few spots on Sumbawa, offer outstanding Komodo snorkeling too. The waterway on the west side of Komodo Island is called Selat Sape, or Sape Strait.
Gili Banta, out in the middle of Sape Strait, has incredibly healthy, colorful, diverse coral reefs with both hard and soft corals. The highlights on these beautiful reefs were the sparkly damselfish and anthias hovering over the corals, crocodilefish, juvenile Black Tip Reef sharks patrolling the shallows, massive schools of small needlefish at the surface, many large anemones with families of colorful anemonefish, and a manta ray cleaning station. It is always a treat to see these massive graceful creatures.
Sangeang Volcano is one of the most unique places we’ve seen for snorkeling. The substrate around the volcano is black sand making for a striking backdrop for the colorful corals that have colonized the rocks. There are places where bubbles come out of the sand and the reefs. This is a unique and photogenic phenomenon to witness.
In addition to the corals, this is the perfect place to see many nudibranchs and other cool sea slugs. We got to see quite a large Blue-spotted Stingray lightly buried in the black sand, perfect camouflage. Another highlight was the gorgeous blue and yellow Ribbon Eel. Following a common theme of sightings in the Sape Strait, there were many enchanting anemones with their fish friends, some in massive colonies.
After our trek to see the Komodo Dragons, we snorkeled on the west shore of Komodo Island and found a wonderful mix of topography, diverse corals, and astounding shallows full of life. A large school of rabbitfish swim by, there were tons of glittering damselfish, and colorful giant clams. We spent time watching interesting egg laying and protection behavior by a pair of squid.
The island of Sumbawa also offers some excellent snorkeling. We found amazing colorful shallow corals, many beautiful bubble anemones with colorful anemonefish, and more crocodilefish. At one spot there were also more young juvenile Black Tip Reef Sharks, but this time the shallows were expansive and we all entered slowly, so we were swimming in three feet of water, among so many sharks that we could not count them all. It was one of our all-time favorite snorkeling experiences for sure.
Komodo Snorkeling – Strong Currents Prevail
One of the reasons for the healthy reefs in Komodo is because they are constantly flushed with strong currents from big tidal movements. So we think that Komodo snorkeling should be done with an experienced guide, because the currents can be moving much much faster than you can swim. So your guide needs to time your snorkeling for when the tide is slack, or as often happened on our trip, we did a drift snorkel with the current. Sometimes we did this entirely around an island.
Komodo Water Temperatures
Depending on if you are snorkeling more in the north or south you may want to have a lightweight wetsuit. The water temperatures can get a bit chilly at times. The majority of our trip the water was warm, but a few times we wore our wetsuits.
How to Snorkel Komodo
East Komodo
The easiest place to access the east side of Komodo National Park is from the airport in Labuan Bajo on the island of Flores. It is a bustling town and the port is packed with wooden boats, both diving liveaboard and day boats, and there were several hundred more liveaboard boats anchored in the harbor. The streets are full of dive shops and tourist centers wanting to take you out on the water, along with many new resorts.
You could do your Komodo snorkeling via day boats or a liveaboard from Labuan Bajo. On a day trip, you will have a hard time reaching the best spots in the national park from there as they are quite far. For both day and liveaboard trips, we highly recommend getting on snorkeling-only tours, so you see the best shallow reefs.
Our trips partner offers some Komodo snorkeling liveaboard trips through Labuan Bajo. Here are links to those options:
- Best of Komodo Liveaboard
- Ultimate Komodo Liveaboard
- West Komodo and Sumbawa Liveaboard
- Alor and Komodo Liveaboard
West Komodo
For access to the west side of Komodo, most of the liveaboard trips above visit West Komodo too. Additionally, our trips partner uses a wonderful resort on the west coast of Sumbawa called Kalimaya Resort. For this resort you fly into Bima and transfer by road to the resort. From this resort, you are usually the only boat and snorkelers for miles around, avoiding the bustle of east Komodo.
Our trips partner offers a number of trips that visit West Komodo, via the Kalimaya Resort. Here are links to those Komodo snorkeling options:
- Alor and West Komodo
- West Komodo and Alor
- Alor West Komodo and Raja Ampat
- West Komodo Bangka and Raja Ampat
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Blurry Fish, Rotten Colors, Garbage Pictures
That does not look like what I saw! See our snorkeling camera pages for tips on selecting a good snorkeling camera, and how to use it for great pictures.
Kalimaya Resort
Kalimaya Resort is lovely with comfortable rooms, great food and a swimming pool. The rooms have wonderful views of the sunrise.
It has a charming house reef when the winds are not on-shore, but much of the shallow reef is exposed at very low tides, so it is preferable to visit when it’s not full or new moon. The house reef has quite a bit of coral, leather, soft, and hard, in surprisingly good variety. There were a lot of fish in good variety: schools of young parrotfish, rabbitfish, batfish, damselfish. We also saw many different beautiful anemones and fish.