Lembeh & Bunaken - 2004.09

Hi all

Here's a link to my snaps from my holiday over the last 2 weeks.

http://www.fototime.com/inv/7E0B710AE3AECC5

--> click on the "web pics" album

--> go to the bottom of the navigation pane on the left side, and look for the folders

20040918 Lembeh

20040926 Bunaken

Within these folders, best are in subfolders "1" and second-best are in "2"; "ID1" has interesting/nice critters/fish but not necessarily good photos.

As in previous trips, I enjoyed Lembeh tremendously. Bunaken was a bit of an afterthought; since we were in the area anyway we spent a few days there.

"The world's smallest monkey" while not a marine critter, is nonetheless pretty cute.

Comments welcome, as always.

-David

Hey David. Great job shooting the usual suspects. I especially like the blue and white critter on the whip coral. What is that?

Hi Herb, thanks for the comments.

Interesting shrimp, that one! The coral was on the starboard side of the Kapal Indah wreck (Southern end of Lembeh Strait). I guess it (the shrimp) was nearly 4 inches long; funniest thing was the fact that all the legs are short, and concentrated in the middle of the body! To me it looks totally unbalanced. And I guess it would be camouflaged better if the coral polyps were out; but we had little current for this dive.

A passing diver stirred up the water after I took my first shots, and the shrimp was dislodged from the whip coral. With no visible movement of any body part, it then drifted slowly back to its exact former position on the coral, so it must have some invisible propulsion system somewhere.

* * * * *

Incidentally, about the 2 nudis shot ... it looks rather sweet, until you discover that the reason they are so close is that they both have their mandibles clamped on the same piece of food! I could see this when I went around the other side, but I still couldn't make out what they were eating.

I think its a saw blade shrimp Tozeuma armatum.

Seems to have been a lot of wetpixians? in Lembeh recently.

Wow! Great Shots!

Wow! I've died and gone to macro heaven. What an amazing diversity of sublime-looking critters. Those are some great finds and a wonderful set of photographs, David.

Would you mind sharing a little more information on your diving in Lembeh? ie. What dive operator? Land and/or liveaboard based? Depth at some of these muck places? Anything else you think might be helpful for someone going there for the first time.

Macro and tons of inverts, even some polychaetes - could life be better? I'd rave about your shots but there are so many great ones it's hard to pick out just a few!

Leslie

Beautiful shots!!! :shock:

I would also like to know about your Lembeh experience, since I'm planning to go somewhere soon.

Peace,

David.

I put some comments here:

http://www.wetpixel.com/PNphpBB2-viewtopic...ic-t-6534.phtml

Hope this is the right way to do the link, anyway it's in the dive destinations forum.

Hope it's useful; remember it's subjective!

-David

BTW credit for some finds goes to Lilac, who is really good at spotting things. For example, the really tiny frogfishes were found by her. I don't know how she does it but I certainly appreciate it!

-David

David, thanks for posting.....I enjoyed looking at all your galleries.....you've been to some great places.....nice job on your photos

Karl

Well done David. Too bad we won't join up this year.

Laz, in gerneral you will love the area. Most of the macro in Lembeh is in 30-40 feet of water. Very much like West Palm Beach muck diving.

Hi Laz, sorry I didn't answer the general question about what the diving is actually like!

Todd's right, it's mostly pretty shallow. The good stuff is all the way up to very shallow water, and it's nice at the and of the dive to be able to potter around for a while under the boat looking for last-minute surprises. (For example, that tiny orange frogfish, mentioned above, was in about 4m.)

Deepest was probably about 30m, at the Angel's Window site.

Vis is never great. It was always a question as to whether it's worth taking the WA lens down with me, but in the end I got a few CFWA shots with which I was very happy.

Water is cold by my standards; coldest was 24C, warmest was 27C during the week. Some people of (dare I say) "standard North American sizes" dive in a dive skin (!) but I was comfortable in 5mm suit + 1-2mm hooded vest + extra 5mm hood. (I figured now I'm over 40 I'm allowed to be comfortable rather than macho! Seriously, I think the reduction in the (already very slight) risk of DCS makes thermal comfort a priority.)

If the dive operators do their job you'll rarely be bothered by current. A few sites (eg Nudi Falls) are subject to significant current depending on the tide, but there's always somewhere sheltered where you can dive. This is great because you can really concentrate on the critters. I didn't mentioned before that at Lembeh Resort they have a very realistic attitude to "buddy teams" in the context of underwater photography. Anyway it's almost all shallow.

Hope you get the chance to go; it's really hard to beat as a place to enjoy the critters.

-David

Would you mind sharing a little more information on your diving in Lembeh? ie. What dive operator? Land and/or liveaboard based? Depth at some of these muck places? Anything else you think might be helpful for someone going there for the first time.

I'll briefly share my experience. We stayed at Lembeh Resort. It was the nicest place we've ever stayed, other than the 84 steps along the path from dive boat to our room (uphill in both directions :wink: ) Huge room with A/C. My SO practically cried when we left.

Murex runs the dive op. Bruce does a great job. Huge camera room with alll kinds of outlets.

Muck diving is usually 60' or less, although we did hit 88' to shoot some pygmies once.

Kungkungan Bay Resort was the first operator at Lembeh. Nice, but no A/C. Eco divers now runs the dive op. KBR has had some ups and downs.

There are two other operators there now. Both a bit more "rustic".

My SO definitely cried when we got to Murex, outside Manado, to dive Bunaken. Murex is a little long in the tooth. Not bad, but not as quaint as Lembeh Resort. She was spoiled. Santika or Tasik Ria may be a better choice if so inclined. The diving was good, but we preferred the muck.

Murex has a live aboard. It's not exactly the Aggressor. They hit Banka and some other areas besides Lembeh. I'm not familiar with the other low end live aboards. The Ocean Rover now goes over there for a few months. They hired on some local DMs who know the sites, plus they had Larry Smith as a guest DM.

A newer boat, the Aqua One, based in Thailand or the Phillipines, I can't remember, now spends some time there now. Someone I know just spent time on the boat (doing Bali/Komodo) and says it is an excellent boat.

I don't think it matters much if you do land or live aboard in Lembeh. The live aboards can do some other area like Bangka and Sangihi (sp?) easier than moving around on land.

Actually Murex has 2 live-aboards. I have been on Serenade twice (!!) and I understand Cybergoldfish has been on the other one (Symphoney, I think) very recently. Since he has also been on Serenade he might be able to give you a comparison between the two.

From my point of view, I'd just say you have to enjoy diving to make it worthwhile to go on Serenade. And choice of cabin may be important, depending whether you are sensitive to noise and/or diesel fumes. But the crew were great, diving was good to excellent, and plenty of it, food was OK to good (within the range of basic chow, nothing fancy).

-David

While I was there I didn't see OR or A1 but did see the Panunee.

A good job as I was sleeping on it