Diving Bunaken

I'm starting to put my standard definition DVDs online. This first instalment is the best of my standard definition footage from my 2006 Bunaken trip, which previously was available as part of a DVD sold by Two Fish Divers at their resorts. The Lembeh section will follow later.

Bits of this have been kicking around the net for ages, but not this long version. This is long (18 minutes) so get yourself a nice cup of tea and put your feet up.

Click on the body of the video itself to open up the video in YouTube and see the full 480 lines of resolution. If you have low bandwidth, click on HQ to turn it off.

I'm not overjoyed with the YouTube HQ encode, which looks less sharp than other recent ones I've done. I sent them 2000kbps x264 video and they've re-encoded it to 800kbps for the HQ version. Maybe I should have sent them a higher bitrate version, or maybe expecting too much for 800kbps. I may well host it myself later.

It's worth hanging on until 08:30 for the baby whale shark at Lekuan two big remoras on it. This whale shark was only 5 or 6 feet long. Anyone ever seen one this small?

Nice One Nick

that bought back some lovely memories, Bunaken is a special place!!

No-one was taking shots of that Whale Shark?

Thankyou for sharing this.

Nige Wade

Great stuff Nick - I'm going to be there in 4 weeks time so I almost peed my pants in excitement!!

The Whaleshark was either very small or those remoras had been on the roids!

Cheers, Simon

REALLY small whale shark. As in smaller than me. I thought it was a nurse shark when I first saw it and then I saw the spots.

It was a shame there wasn't a diver in shot with it to give it scale but the dive guide totally missed it and the other diver, a newly qualified open water diver, didn't want to leave the guide ( ) so I had it all to myself.

I read an article from FINS I think where someone had photographed a baby whale shark at Bunaken a little earlier than that and reckoned it was the smallest one ever photographed. Maybe the same one or one of the same litter?

Simon, if you're on the Bunaken/Manado side of north Sulawesi then make sure you get over to Wori for some great mucky macro with a slightly different flavour to Lembeh! Also I hear good reports about wide angle at Pangulingan, which is around the back of Manado Tua, but I've never been there.

We're there for a month Nick, so I'm hoping to get as many different sites in as we can

Yeah that must have been a really small Whaleshark then. I think the smallest ever recorded was around 40cm, which I think was a surprise to many as the theory suggested that they were born larger than that. Yours must have been a 'toddler' by comparison? I can see how you thought it could have been a nurse shark or a leopard shark. There's so much we still don't know....want an amazing encounter!

Cheers, Simon

I also put an embedded YouTube player with all my Bunaken videos on Facebook.

LoL, the body language of the diver being guided while you are filming the baby whale shark.