May 2008 Archives

Diving in Indonesia is great. Its the holy grail of diving. A country of islands with the highest underwater bio diversity in the world. You could dive your entire life and not visit every dive site in the country. Lets just say that I wasn't lacking things to take photos of.

I flew into Bali and then took a fast book to the island of Gili Trawangan which is located off the coast of Lombok. Gili Trawangan is one of three islands in a chain and is the most developed tourist spot of the three. Its also known as a bit of a 'party' island, though it seemed rather tame most of the time. I stayed and dived with the people at Big Bubble Dive. The rooms were quite nice and rather cheap. The staff were very helpful and friendly (in both English and French). The dive equipment was in good shape and proper working order. Daily dives were done from a boat, and all dive locations were no more than a 10 minute boat ride away.

It seemed that most people visiting the island had come for the diving. The area around the three islands held quite a diverse set of dive locations ranging from shallow coral gardens, to deep ridges. The quality of the coral was at times breath taking and at other times heart breaking. In years past many of the reefs were damaged due to bad fishing practices. A lot of effort has gone into protecting the reefs and promoting new coral growth. An interesting fact about the islands is that the local dive shops pay fishermen not to fish the area, which has done wonders for the recovery of the area.

Before this vacation I had never seen a sea turtle before. I think I saw 10 on my first dive. In fact it was a strange dive that didn't have us seeing at least one turtle. The area had both Green Turtles and Hawksbill Turtles. Some were quite large. We estimated one at being around 1.5 meters long. My favorite turtle was the one pictured below sleeping in a sponge vase. The other picture has a turtle hanging out with a Lion Fish.

I usually tend to be obsessed with taking pictures of really small things while diving, but before I get to those, I thought I'd show off a few big fish that we came across. below is one of several small reef sharks I saw while diving. Usually we would come across them sleeping on the ocean floor, only have scare them away before I could take a decent picture. We also came across this large school of Jack Fish. I tried to join the school, but couldn't keep up.

I ended up getting really lucky and coming across a school of big Bump Head Parrot Fish. I was told that these fish usually spend their time down deep but come up once a month to feed during the full moon. These big, and harmless, fish didn't seem to care about a group of divers. Seriously big fish.

I always try and take pictures of very small things. Sometimes these pictures turn out well, other times not. One of my favorite small things to take pictures of are anemone shrimp. These translucent little shrimp are beautiful but a pain to actually get in focus with my small camera. I was able to get a few decent pictures of them as well as some anemone crabs I also ran across.

It seems that ever diver has some underwater creature that they're a bit obsessed with. For me it would be nudibranches. AKA Sea Slugs. I go crazy over them and a bulk of the photos I take while diving seem to be devoted to these colorful little slugs. Indonesia has quite the selection to pick from depending on where you dive. For the most part I only came across some ugly bumpy slugs. But every now and then would come across a spectacular one.

I'm not just a slug lover, I also enjoy snails and other creatures with shells. Below you can see some very interesting shelled creatures going about their business in the ocean.

One of the common sights while diving were Mantis Shrimp. These big shrimp are really weird looking, and even more weird to watch. They usually run away from divers, but on one dive we came across a shrimp that didn't seem to care. You can view video of him in action at the end of the blog.

A short distance from shore, about 16 meters under water, sits a twisted hunk of steal and wire. This is Bio Rock. While at first it may look like someone dumped a bunch of trash into the ocean this hunk of metal is actually promoting new coral growth. It was set up as an artificial reef. An electrical current runs through it at all times, because it seems coral likes electricity. While a neat sight to see during the day, it becomes super creepy to swim around during a night dive.

Not everything I ran across in the ocean was your typical run of the mill sea life. I did happen to come across some really weird stuff. A Leafy Scorpion Fish was a rare find. It spends it days looking like a dead leaf on the ocean floor. In the next photo a Flying Garnet spreads its wings as it glides over the ocean floor. One of my favorite fish, the stunning Ribbon Eel. The eel was a stark contrast to its neighbor, the Black Frog Fish which happens to be just one ugly fish.

Daytime diving is quite fun, but I may have started to become a night diving addict. Its a thrilling experience. A whole different environment appears at night. Eels and Lion Fish come out to hunt. Crabs and shrimp venture out of their hiding places. A familiar dive site becomes a whole different experience at night. I tagged along during two different night dive classes and saw some really weird stuff. Such as a Spanish Dancer slug, which is the size of a dinner plate and an interesting color. Some weird shrimp. A little baby cuttle fish (which are fun to play with). Plus, whats up with the little blenny making his home in an old bottle?

Speaking of cuttle fish; I love them to bits. I'd never seen a cuttle fish before Indonesia. They're fascinating creatures. Related to squids they have a remarkable color changing ability. Its an effect that doesn't look natural. It looks like something you should see in a movie full of CGI effects. The pictures below are are the same cuttle fish. If you want to see some fun color shifting abilities jut watch the video at the end of the blog post.

I had wanted to see a Manta Ray, but sadly that didn't happen. But I did happen to see several blue spotted rays which were very beautiful. A much more colorful, though smaller, ray than the ones that I saw in New Zealand. During one dive a ray decided to swim under our entire group. I was lucky enough to be at the end of our group and got a nice action picture of it.

Oh, and no diving blog post would be complete without some random pictures of clown fish. (I may or may not have watched Finding Nemo on my iPod during my trip.)

If you feel the urge to you can watch some video of my diving. The video has some fun shots of mantis shrimps, sharks, the big bump head parrot fish, sea snakes, and turtles.

So thats the rundown on my Indonesia trip. I did 19 dives and would have loved to do another 19 if I had the time. I'm seriously thinking about going back to Indonesia for some more diving this next year. If anyone feels the urge to they can send me money for diving at any time.

Technorati Tags: diving, indonesia, scuba, Sharks, slugs, String Ray, travel, video

Ireland is hatching a plan to hunt down and catch rouge fishing nets. Nets that are free floating around the Atlantic causing all sorts of problems. Its an interesting problem and I'm happy to see that someone is taking the effort to stop these so call 'ghost nets' from destroying the sea beds and killing more sea life.

To read more, just click on the link.

Technorati Tags: conservation, ireland

For the first time ever someone has filmed Killer Whales hunting dolphins. (Which is interesting to me, because Killer Whales are actually in the dolphin family) A tour group in South Africa saw the hunt happening and filmed it. Afterwards divers from the boat got into the water for a closer look. Check out the really interesting article.