LEMBEH STRAITS
LEMBEH STRAITS (9-10th May 2006)
Lembeh Straits is a very beautiful strait and it’s the one of the best macro diving sites in the world. Along the straits there are many dive points continuously. Macro diving is often muck diving, it’s similar with Puri Jati in Bali, the rewards are things hidden from your first glance.
As Lembeh is located on the other site of the place we stayed, we needed to take two hours car ride to reach there. So we decided to go Lembeh on Tuesday and Wednesday, seven o’clock sharp we were already hit the road.
On our first day to Lembeh Botak and Gondrong joined us. It’s very funny to hear Botak pronounced Lembeh, while the name itself is already funny. So, around 9 am, we were already at Bitung jetty, we stood there watching fishermen and little children playing in the water, ate ice cream while waiting for the DMs doing boat negotiation. If Coke tastes the best on the mountain, Ice Cream tastes its best beside the sea.
We chartered boat with spacious covered sitting space and because of that, we have spacious roof deck to enjoy the open. The minus, the small front boat area was the only place we had for gearing up, and because it was high, we experienced high giant stride. It was quite scary on the first jump, but after that, I liked it more than ordinary jump.
On the way to and from Bitung, we could see carved island standing out from the water, boats, big ships which some of it were very rusty and looked like it was ready to sink and be dived at. Evil thought.
As muck diving, Lembeh has limited visibility, so at times, when we got too carried out for getting good pictures, or chasing something, we got separated. It was easy to hear each other if we banged the tank, but the problem was, which direction did it come from? So what we did was make multi tier search. If we knew that everyone was there, but couldn’t be seen, one person would go as far as we could see the buddy, if we still couldn’t find the lost, the second person would move, so did the first person to widen the perimeter, with the DM as the center.
Black sandy bottom was the common dive site pattern in Lembeh. It is indeed heaven for macro diving. Mantis peacock, cockatoo waspfish, devil fish, bent stick pipe, banded pipe, lined sea horse, leaf fish, mantis shrimp, flying gurnard? Those species would send us to crazy anytime else, but in Lembeh, they were so common. We saw many really special things like purple rhinopias, perfectly sitting there for you to take pictures, as many different angles as you want, sea robin/Pegasus, dragonet, pigmy sea horse, various filefish, jawfish, hairy frogfish juvenile, mimic octopus, unidentified octopus, and a lot of special bangai cardinal (found in Lembeh and Bangai only), juvenile spotted drum, queen conch snail. Other than those, everywhere we found nudibranch, sharpnose puffer, various lionfish, cleaner shrimps, clown fish, moray eels, snake eels, flounders (from common to enormous size). The flounders here were very friendly and timid, as they always camouflage, their body was always covered in sand. But when I saw Refly and Cynthia ‘cleaned up’ the sand slowly with their pointers, to make them look prettier in the pictures, the flounders just let them. The scorpion fish were not the only ugly dull type, we also found red and beautiful orange yellow scorpions, although they had ugly faces, they were very eager to pose. The juvenile hairy frogfish was found on a tree bark, it was very cute. After the entire photographers were done with it, I watched this tiny frogfish closely, it might be only 1 cm in size, but it looked exactly like the adult. Maybe it was pissed off with this huge yellow mask, after a while, it turned its back and ‘walked’ inside one of the tiny sponge with its feet-like dorsal fins. Since that moment, I have another favorite things in my list, this ugly frogfish! I was blessed, because after that, I found a pair of very dirty adult frogfish and my one favorite, a white juvenile frogfish doing rock climbing vertically on the coral. Frogfish are one of the camouflage master therefore it’s sort of a challenge to find them.
Another super cute encounter, we found this (1 cm also) baby spiky cuttlefish, it moved up and down nervously to stay still despite the current, sometimes it hid inside the soft coral when it glanced and saw five very curious big ugly ‘fish’ around it.
The porcupine fish were not less attractive. Although they were everywhere, we still liked to observe them when we were out of other objects. They had this funny habit to hide their head under whatever things they found. At first we thought they were stuck, so when we saw one under treebranch, we freed it, but it went back in, same thing happened few times with different porcupines, and we had to shrug our shoulder and laugh. I guess, inside their spiky head they thought, ‘if I can’t see them, they can’t see me’, while their spiky butt and another three quarter of the body were outside. They were also like to hide inside cans, so did some octopus, which found their perfect home inside discarded bottle.
We also found a monster of the monster half lobster, the half lobster was already almost my arm length, if it was alive and walking, I wouldn’t want to be near, or maybe I would…....yummy.
We spent one and half hours for many dives, especially second day in Lembeh when there were only four of us and Refly, until our schedule was messed up. Such as, we finished first dive and it was already lunch hour, so when we went down for the third dive, it was about dusk time, and the dive sites, nudi retreat, was located exactly on the side of island, when many land vegetation covered it. It was like some sacred place; place I wouldn’t want to swim alone. Additional with rainy day, below that, it was semi dark, like very cloudy underwater, it created mysterious but somehow nice and comfortable. Then I had my story about clown fish.
If there were a fish that I would want to touch, to play and to take close up photo with them on my nose, clown fish would be one of the harmless types. We get so accustomed with clown fish as they are also seen in West Malaysia, the place that we dive often for the sake of diving only. In menado, we learned more about them.
Clown fish in Menado, except the usual a bunch of anemone on hard corals, they were everywhere even in muck diving area, lots of them like I’ve told in the beginning of the story. Apparently, clownfish in Menado bites, especially the bigger type with darker colour. We could see the adult clownfish hovering high above their anemone, watched us restlessly and if we got close, they didn’t hesitate to bite. Frankie had warned us about them, but since they were everywhere, and it was fun to watch them, Leo got bitten few times. I tried not to get to close to them, although sometimes I absentmindedly offering my fingers to them, such as, when you see cute cats and dogs and say Kitty kitty kitty doggy doggy doggy this clowny clowny fishy fishy fishy…. I was lucky because I could avoid or remember on time but when I was in Nudi retreat, the site was dark and I swore I didn’t see the anemone, one of the clown fish snapped my little finger. We didn’t wear gloves in Lembeh, as it was prohibited. It left nasty teeth mark and the finger kept bleeding until the end of the dive. Maybe I got too close, but it was hovering very high from their nest because I didn’t see it, probably it was hidden inside the coral. So I could only look at the clownfish with protest, while it looked back at me, ‘Want some more?’
Since it was our last dive in Lembeh, we spent the longer hours and fooling with each other until up was up.
Every day after diving in Lembeh, we would need to take another two hours car ride, so to avoid the stickiness; we had some natural ‘shower’. The boat would take us to a place, from a glance it looked like few pipe and wood hovering above the sea to some island. So we needed to walk through the sixty-centimeter-wide plank and some other narrower earth path, until we reached the secret place, a mini water fall. The water was very fresh; it was able to wash up all the salt on the skin and hair.
I realize, this trip, we never once set our foot into the island except the place we stayed. Therefore, no sand collection this trip, and maybe it’s time for me to stop this gross habit. ; ))
Leave nothing but bubble,
Take nothing but picture,
Kill nothing but time.
Age does not diminish the extreme disappointment of having a scoop of ice cream fall from the cone.
- Jim Freiburg
Lembeh Straits is a very beautiful strait and it’s the one of the best macro diving sites in the world. Along the straits there are many dive points continuously. Macro diving is often muck diving, it’s similar with Puri Jati in Bali, the rewards are things hidden from your first glance.
As Lembeh is located on the other site of the place we stayed, we needed to take two hours car ride to reach there. So we decided to go Lembeh on Tuesday and Wednesday, seven o’clock sharp we were already hit the road.
On our first day to Lembeh Botak and Gondrong joined us. It’s very funny to hear Botak pronounced Lembeh, while the name itself is already funny. So, around 9 am, we were already at Bitung jetty, we stood there watching fishermen and little children playing in the water, ate ice cream while waiting for the DMs doing boat negotiation. If Coke tastes the best on the mountain, Ice Cream tastes its best beside the sea.
We chartered boat with spacious covered sitting space and because of that, we have spacious roof deck to enjoy the open. The minus, the small front boat area was the only place we had for gearing up, and because it was high, we experienced high giant stride. It was quite scary on the first jump, but after that, I liked it more than ordinary jump.
On the way to and from Bitung, we could see carved island standing out from the water, boats, big ships which some of it were very rusty and looked like it was ready to sink and be dived at. Evil thought.
As muck diving, Lembeh has limited visibility, so at times, when we got too carried out for getting good pictures, or chasing something, we got separated. It was easy to hear each other if we banged the tank, but the problem was, which direction did it come from? So what we did was make multi tier search. If we knew that everyone was there, but couldn’t be seen, one person would go as far as we could see the buddy, if we still couldn’t find the lost, the second person would move, so did the first person to widen the perimeter, with the DM as the center.
Black sandy bottom was the common dive site pattern in Lembeh. It is indeed heaven for macro diving. Mantis peacock, cockatoo waspfish, devil fish, bent stick pipe, banded pipe, lined sea horse, leaf fish, mantis shrimp, flying gurnard? Those species would send us to crazy anytime else, but in Lembeh, they were so common. We saw many really special things like purple rhinopias, perfectly sitting there for you to take pictures, as many different angles as you want, sea robin/Pegasus, dragonet, pigmy sea horse, various filefish, jawfish, hairy frogfish juvenile, mimic octopus, unidentified octopus, and a lot of special bangai cardinal (found in Lembeh and Bangai only), juvenile spotted drum, queen conch snail. Other than those, everywhere we found nudibranch, sharpnose puffer, various lionfish, cleaner shrimps, clown fish, moray eels, snake eels, flounders (from common to enormous size). The flounders here were very friendly and timid, as they always camouflage, their body was always covered in sand. But when I saw Refly and Cynthia ‘cleaned up’ the sand slowly with their pointers, to make them look prettier in the pictures, the flounders just let them. The scorpion fish were not the only ugly dull type, we also found red and beautiful orange yellow scorpions, although they had ugly faces, they were very eager to pose. The juvenile hairy frogfish was found on a tree bark, it was very cute. After the entire photographers were done with it, I watched this tiny frogfish closely, it might be only 1 cm in size, but it looked exactly like the adult. Maybe it was pissed off with this huge yellow mask, after a while, it turned its back and ‘walked’ inside one of the tiny sponge with its feet-like dorsal fins. Since that moment, I have another favorite things in my list, this ugly frogfish! I was blessed, because after that, I found a pair of very dirty adult frogfish and my one favorite, a white juvenile frogfish doing rock climbing vertically on the coral. Frogfish are one of the camouflage master therefore it’s sort of a challenge to find them.
Another super cute encounter, we found this (1 cm also) baby spiky cuttlefish, it moved up and down nervously to stay still despite the current, sometimes it hid inside the soft coral when it glanced and saw five very curious big ugly ‘fish’ around it.
The porcupine fish were not less attractive. Although they were everywhere, we still liked to observe them when we were out of other objects. They had this funny habit to hide their head under whatever things they found. At first we thought they were stuck, so when we saw one under treebranch, we freed it, but it went back in, same thing happened few times with different porcupines, and we had to shrug our shoulder and laugh. I guess, inside their spiky head they thought, ‘if I can’t see them, they can’t see me’, while their spiky butt and another three quarter of the body were outside. They were also like to hide inside cans, so did some octopus, which found their perfect home inside discarded bottle.
We also found a monster of the monster half lobster, the half lobster was already almost my arm length, if it was alive and walking, I wouldn’t want to be near, or maybe I would…....yummy.
We spent one and half hours for many dives, especially second day in Lembeh when there were only four of us and Refly, until our schedule was messed up. Such as, we finished first dive and it was already lunch hour, so when we went down for the third dive, it was about dusk time, and the dive sites, nudi retreat, was located exactly on the side of island, when many land vegetation covered it. It was like some sacred place; place I wouldn’t want to swim alone. Additional with rainy day, below that, it was semi dark, like very cloudy underwater, it created mysterious but somehow nice and comfortable. Then I had my story about clown fish.
If there were a fish that I would want to touch, to play and to take close up photo with them on my nose, clown fish would be one of the harmless types. We get so accustomed with clown fish as they are also seen in West Malaysia, the place that we dive often for the sake of diving only. In menado, we learned more about them.
Clown fish in Menado, except the usual a bunch of anemone on hard corals, they were everywhere even in muck diving area, lots of them like I’ve told in the beginning of the story. Apparently, clownfish in Menado bites, especially the bigger type with darker colour. We could see the adult clownfish hovering high above their anemone, watched us restlessly and if we got close, they didn’t hesitate to bite. Frankie had warned us about them, but since they were everywhere, and it was fun to watch them, Leo got bitten few times. I tried not to get to close to them, although sometimes I absentmindedly offering my fingers to them, such as, when you see cute cats and dogs and say Kitty kitty kitty doggy doggy doggy this clowny clowny fishy fishy fishy…. I was lucky because I could avoid or remember on time but when I was in Nudi retreat, the site was dark and I swore I didn’t see the anemone, one of the clown fish snapped my little finger. We didn’t wear gloves in Lembeh, as it was prohibited. It left nasty teeth mark and the finger kept bleeding until the end of the dive. Maybe I got too close, but it was hovering very high from their nest because I didn’t see it, probably it was hidden inside the coral. So I could only look at the clownfish with protest, while it looked back at me, ‘Want some more?’
Since it was our last dive in Lembeh, we spent the longer hours and fooling with each other until up was up.
Every day after diving in Lembeh, we would need to take another two hours car ride, so to avoid the stickiness; we had some natural ‘shower’. The boat would take us to a place, from a glance it looked like few pipe and wood hovering above the sea to some island. So we needed to walk through the sixty-centimeter-wide plank and some other narrower earth path, until we reached the secret place, a mini water fall. The water was very fresh; it was able to wash up all the salt on the skin and hair.
I realize, this trip, we never once set our foot into the island except the place we stayed. Therefore, no sand collection this trip, and maybe it’s time for me to stop this gross habit. ; ))
Leave nothing but bubble,
Take nothing but picture,
Kill nothing but time.
Age does not diminish the extreme disappointment of having a scoop of ice cream fall from the cone.
- Jim Freiburg
posted by aping at 11:17 PM
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