Lembeh Straits - Wide Angle

Come May I will be headed to the other side of the pond for the first time ever and will be staying at KBR in the Lembeh Straits. I have never been outside of Florida and a little bit of the Caribbean so I am already drooling at the possibilities of Indonesia. Lembeh is well known for all its macro critters, but I'm curious to know about any wide angle possibilities. Does anyone have any galleries of wide angle imagery of the area? Should I bring my large dome port for splits? I already have a smaller dome port for underwater wide angle and WAM.

I've read that KBR has one of the nicest house reef and there is one topside shot of the house reef (on the net) shot at low tide with what appears to be a good amount of hard corals right at the surface. Does anyone have any wide angle photos of this house reef?

While unfortunately I will not be visiting any other areas in Indonesia (Raja in particular) to see the luscious, colorful reefs that Indonesia is known for, are there any areas around Lembeh with colorful walls of soft corals with a mix of hard corals and marine life worth visiting.

Your advice is GREATLY appreciated.

The Indonesian virgin,

Laz

PM sent

Hey Laz

Actually the KBR house reef has a few nice seafans that will lend themselves well to a great WA shot with the pier in the background.

There are a few nice soft corals about as well as some sites with large seafans. However, you don't get great viz as the water is a bit green so your backgrounds won't be that pleasing. There are also a couple of wrecks worth a WA visit.

You can def use your small dome for CFWA that is for sure.

For splits... hmmm... the front of KBR should be good for that, i have some from the front of my resort as well.

Many of the sites on the island side of the straight such as Pantai Perigi and Tanjung kusu kusu and several others have great hard coral up in the shallows in less than 5 metres of water. So if you went to one of those sites specifically for wide angle and didn't go deeper than 5m for the dive you would get some results for sure.

There are some dive sites at the far end of the straits that offer decent wide angle - my dive log says California Dreaming and I remember my two dives at Angel's Window suggested decent wide angle. But it will depend upon the tide. You need to say that you want to do wide angle and not macro and the guides will try to time it for you.

Have fun.

Rinjani

Thanks guys.

Mike, I noticed in your gallery of images on oceanstockimages.com that there is a set from Manado 2009. Where in Manado is this? That second image with the hard corals is something along the lines of what I would love to see.

ah, those are from Bunaken National Park.. its the islands off of Manado. Lembeh shops don't really do day trips out that way. But you could extend your stay and stay out there