Alex Kimbrough – Senior Instructor
Time seems to fly faster than a ripping full moon current here on our little island paradise and another three months have come and gone with the tides. So as we gear up for the start of Mola (alexandrini!) season, let’s take a look back at the last few months at IOP Penida.
Firstly, a huge congratulations to all of our graduating students. It has been a privilege to watch them develop and help each other become confident dive professionals and researchers.
Madison Lin (USofA), Rowen Stepney (UK), Molly McNamara-Langton (UK), Thomas Wakeling (Wales), Lily Measdey (UK), Marianna Myrick (UK), Jess Beech (UK), Benjamin Watson-Cowen (UK), Nanuk Gimenez (Spain), Emilios Antonatos (Greece), and Beatriz Losada (Spain)
Thank you all for bringing your passion, hard work, your unique personalities and skills, keeping us entertained and on our toes, and for your invaluable contribution to our research here in Penida. Seeing the progress you make is without a doubt the most rewarding part of the job.
On the scientific front these last months have seen a ramp up in the number of research projects taken on by the team and collaborations with other organisations. This has given our students a fantastic opportunity to get even more hands-on conservation experience. It has been an exciting challenge adding so much into our already busy programme but the staff have, as ever, taken every new development in stride. See the science report for more details and more Penida specific research is coming in the next months so watch this space.
We have had three busy months on the Ecology side running more than 50 Ecology workshops, from Manta ecology to Shark to Nudibranch, Turtle, Mola, Mangrove and of course our comprehensive Coral courses and dives with some big updates coming in. As well as some supplementary workshops specific to our Penida research projects.
This quarter also saw the launch of our first IOP expedition liveaboard with new partners Uncharted Cruises. Led by Selene Gaiani and Pascal Sebastian alongside the fantastic Uncharted Cruises, the beautiful vessel Ta’Talasa set out from Sorong with 6 former interns plus 3 guests.
Over the course of 10 days they made their way via Misool, Halmahera and Lembeh to North Sulawesi. On the way doing no less than 16 Roving Surveys, 16 Benthic Surveys and dropping 16 BRUVs to further our mission studying biodiversity across the Indonesian archipelago.
With so much in the pipeline: welcoming new students, taking on new projects, expanding our research capability and launching further expeditions we are incredibly excited for the year ahead.
Kristova Indrataruna – Project Marine Biologist
Science and Biodiversity report
The ocean has a way of rewarding patience. After a demanding start to the year, Penida turned on the charm this quarter, treating us to incredible weather, crystal-clear conditions, and a surge of breathtaking marine life.
During this period, we conducted 35 roving fish surveys, 12 benthic surveys, and 13 BRUV deployments. Excellent conditions in Penida allowed us to catch up on our previous targets from last quarter. All of this monitoring data was collected by our dedicated and hard-working interns, whom I would like to sincerely thank.
Penida once again delivered exciting megafauna encounters over the past three months. Highlights included sightings of the snaggletooth shark (Hemipristis elongata), whitetip reef shark (Triaenodon obesus), Indonesian wobbegong (Orectolobus leptolineatus), spotted eagle ray (Aetobatus ocellatus), pink whipray (Pateobatis fai), marbled ray (Taeniura meyeni), and olive ridley turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea). Alongside these sightings, we recorded our first bumphead sunfish (Mola alexandrini) of the season. Unexpectedly, this Mola was spotted at Labyrinth, which to our knowledge is the first time the species has been sighted there. Most of these encounters occurred in April; surprisingly, the whitetip reef shark and Indonesian wobbegong we encountered remained in the exact same location for several weeks.
In addition to these remarkable encounters, we continued to observe our familiar residents, including hawksbill turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata), green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas), bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops sp.), reef mantas (Mobula alfredii), and brownbanded bamboo sharks (Chiloscyllium punctatum).
We look forward to seeing what the next quarter will bring underneath the waves!
Citizen Science
Our commitment to citizen science remains strong as we continue to document every exciting encounter and contribute valuable data to our partners. This quarter, we completed 21 citizen science dives, adding 24 turtle cheek identification photos, 1 manta belly shot, and 3 elasmobranch images to our database.
Our conservation work extends far beyond wildlife sightings; it also includes actively monitoring the health of the reef and surrounding environments. Through five Dive Against Debris dives, we removed 14.4 kg of trash from Crystal Bay. We also conducted four beach clean-ups, three at our boat landing area and one at Lumangan Beach, collecting a total of 322.63 kg of marine debris. Additionally, our team completed four CoralWatch dives to monitor long-term coral health and bleaching trends over time.
Penida Coral Restoration Project: Indo Ocean Project X Terra Segara Indonesia
This quarter, we collaborated with Terra Segara Indonesia to plant more corals in Crystal Bay. Terra Segara is a local foundation co-founded by IOP’s Science Director, Pascal Sebastian, dedicated to providing diving education and conservation awareness for local children in Penida. Crystal Bay was selected for this project due to its immense popularity among divers and its critical ecological significance as bumphead molas’ cleaning station. However, despite its ecological importance, sections of the reef have suffered acute degradation from heavy wave energy and pressure from irresponsible diving practices. Through this joint initiative, we successfully deployed 111 reef stars transplanted with healthy coral fragments into the bay.
This partnership represents more than just physical reef restoration; it bridges the gap between scientific monitoring and community-led conservation. By involving local youth through Terra Segara, we are helping to foster the next generation of marine stewards right here in Nusa Penida. This collaboration will continue throughout the year, with several more coral planting phases already scheduled to ensure the long-term recovery of Crystal Bay’s structural complexity.
Continuation of Penida Coral Spawning
Our collaborative coral spawning monitoring initiative continued to yield substantial data this quarter, with a wider variety of hard coral taxa observed spawning. Confirmed spawning events were documented across multiple genera, including Echinopora, Galaxea, Goniastrea, Favites, Platygyra, Montipora, Porites, Acropora, Lobophyllia, Merulina, and Zoanthus.
The field data collected over the past six months have been highly successful in unravelling the localized environmental cues and precise timing of Penida’s coral spawning windows. The project is now transitioning from active field monitoring into the data analysis phase. The next step will focus on evaluating these multi-month datasets to synthesize our findings, with a formal report of the results pending publication.
Penida Coral Restoration Research
In Nusa Penida, a collaborative network of NGOs and dive centers actively participates in coral restoration initiatives. These collective actions have successfully recovered localized sections of the reef that were severely degraded years ago. While reef-destructive activities have significantly declined since the establishment of the Marine Protected Area (MPA), the long-term threat of climate change still looms over these ecosystems.
Sustaining existing coral restoration sites is a critical strategy for mitigating these climate impacts. Ensuring the longevity of well-established restoration areas is far more impactful than rapidly initiating new sites only to abandon them due to resource constraints. However, a critical operational question remains: how much maintenance is required to keep a restoration site ecologically healthy while keeping labor and resource investments to a minimum?
To address this challenge, our Senior Marine Biologist, Gita Alisa, is leading a research project to quantify the baseline maintenance requirements for successful reef cultivation. Once this study is finalized, we intend to share our data-driven findings with regional NGOs and dive centers to help optimize community-wide conservation workflows and maximize long-term reef resilience across Penida.
Andy Handoko – Program Coordinator
I am very excited to finally be writing my first quarterly report as the Program Coordinator in Penida since stepping into this role in January 2026. These past few months have been both exhilarating and deeply rewarding. I’ve learned so much from my team and from the interns, just as I hope they have learned from me.
As the summer months begin, the water is slowly getting colder. Everyone is certainly excited about what these nutrient-rich waters bring with them — molas (Mola Alexandrini), and hopefully even some larger sharks. Manta Point has been spoiling us with steady manta encounters and countless blue-spotted stingrays piled on top of one another like lazy underwater pancakes. Honestly, there are moments when I think: what a life it must be to spend your days lounging beside friends while mantas glide gracefully overhead.
Saying goodbye to graduating interns never gets easier, but there is always something exciting about welcoming a new group of fresh faces. Our interns have been thoroughly enjoying their time in Penida — exploring the island’s beautiful beaches, building confidence underwater, and becoming more eager than ever to improve their diving skills. One of the most inspiring parts of this role is hearing about their future plans after the program ends. Some are hoping to continue their professional diving journey toward becoming instructors, while others are branching into freediving and other ocean-related paths. Watching that passion grow is endlessly rewarding.
I’m also looking forward to welcoming our upcoming interns, who will be joining us from France, the United States, Thailand, Hungary, Switzerland, and many more places around the world. One of my favorite things about this program is how people from completely different backgrounds and cultures come together through a shared love for the ocean. Every new group brings fresh perspectives, stories, and experiences, creating countless opportunities for all of us to teach, learn, and grow alongside one another.
I think I’ve rambled on long enough for one report. Needless to say, my time with IOP has already been incredibly rewarding, meaningful, and fun, and I’m excited to see what the next few months will bring.
Until my next quarterly report — cheers!
Want to join the team?
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