Manta rays like to frequent Komodo National Park but you might not be able to spend much time with them as you are likely to be caught up in a quick drift. That said, there are some sites where you can use a reef hook and enjoy the display of whitetip sharks, tuna, trevally, rainbow runner and barracuda zipping around looking for a meal. Eagle rays are also often seen in the blue. Around healthy sloping reefs, there are usually many lyretail anthias, angelfish and butterflyfish. Amongst the corals there are some interesting critters to find like frogfish and nudibranch.
Off Maumere, the reefs have a good coverage of soft corals and colorful crinoids. Other than colorful reef fish, look out for ribbon eels, moray eels, squat lobsters and crabs. Gorgonian sea fans are plentiful here and you could find some with pygmy seahorses. Muck sites could reveal an Ambon scorpionfish, waspfish, flamboyant cuttlefish, colorful nudibranch, octopus and other strange critters.
