Kal's Dream was named after famous diver/ writer/ photographer Kal Muller, who was one of the pioneers of diving in Indonesia. When Kal first dived this site, he saw many pelagics he had never dreamed of before. Sadly, his dream has turned into a nightmare. When we arrived at the site, spear fishermen were all over the place, freediving off small wooden boats. They have obviously cottoned on that this is where the big fishes congregate, and started overfishing it.
The site itself was a collection of large submerged boulders in a channel off Kumba Island, famous for its ripping currents. When our liveaboard tried to approach the site earlier in the morning, the current was so strong that our boat could only move at 0.5 knots at full steam! (We left Kal's Dream for Slab City, and came back to see if the current eased up. It did).
We did a negative buoyancy descent to 5 meters, and had to hold on to the rocks to avoid being swept off by the 2-knot current. The current carried the other group of divers to a nearby dive site, so they dived there instead. Our group bravely fought the current, hid behind rocks, held on, and waited. We were rewarded with sightings of a small school of giant trevally, a turtle, and a Napoleon (Maori) wrasse playing in the currents. It was a short, 36-min dive, but rewarding nevertheless.
For the second dive of the day five of our trip, we re-visited Kal's Dream. I was not very enthusiastic about this dive, seeing that the previous dive was not that special at all. I went anyway, because I was determined to do ALL the scheduled dives for this trip despite my runny nose and raw throat. I was right not to expect too much. It was a short 43-minute dive spent hanging out in the current and NOT seeing any pelagic. Very sad. I was lucky I had a reef hook with me, so I literally "hung out" in the sweeping 1-2knot currents, looking at the colourful corals nearby. The other divers (who had no reef hook) were struggling to hold on to rocks, and I secretly chuckled to myself... muahahahaha....