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.

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To read more, just click on the link.

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The interesting thing is that the reef grew back. About 65% of the wildlife has returned and is in excellent shape. Partially because people are still quite afraid to go there. The only visitors these days are the occasional SCUBA diver visiting ship wrecks. The picture below (stolen from Power Boat World) was taken at the center of one of the blast craters.

With any luck people will continue to stay away and the reef will continue to grow. I personally would to dive the area. I'm told the ship wrecks, which were sank during the nuclear testing, are amazing to see. With any luck someone will come up with the idea of doing diving at the reef in the future.

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Located to the East of Bali, and right off the coast of the larger Lombok Island, the Gili islands offer quite a bit in the way of diving. Some healthy coral reefs, a great variety of small creatures, and the chance to possibly (I really hope!) to see some larger ones. Plus it looks like a very very very relaxing area for someone who needs to get away. In case you don't know where it is, google is your friend.

My top five things I really want to see. 1) Manta Ray 2) Turtle 3) Sea Horse 4) A lot of slugs 5) Cuddle Fish.

Eh, who am I kidding. If I just see a single Manta Ray I'll be so overly super thrilled that I'll forget about the rest. I'll be sure to post a lot of photos as well as video when I return.

This charger from Brando does it all. Charge an internal battery via solar or regular AC. It has a USB port for charging your iPod/ mp3 player of choice, a spot to hook up various phones, and a clip on back that does camera batteries. And it also has a flashlight on the front. Not bad for $25. At that price you could use it on one trip and it would almost pay for itself.

Heres how I see it working for me. I take a lot of photos while running around the wilderness. I offload pictures from my camera onto my iPod (giving me massive amounts of storage space, though SD cards are super cheap). Recharge both through this charger. Results: Happiness.

Gizmodo has a nice review of it or just go order one now.

Read all about it here.

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The scientific research included injecting minke whale sperm into cows eggs, and attempts to produce test-tube whale babies, News Limited newspapers report.

This explains so much.

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While not completely white, its still quite a rare animal. Also, killer Whales are really dolphins. They try and confuse you to mask their sinister nature.

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For more dramatic photos follow the link.

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The articles goes on to say that one of the major problems is that jellyfish are proving very tricky to eliminate. Seems that when they feel threatened, or their population numbers start to drop, their solution is to start producing even more eggs. Which means more jellyfish. A scary thought indeed.

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To put in perspective this thing has a meter (2.2 feet) wide head. Yeah. Big.

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Even better, from what I've read Japan still has whale meat left over from last year. Last year being one of the worst years for meat prices, falling so low that dog food makers were buying it.

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The interesting thing about this is that they appear to learn this skill from other dolphins. Animals this smart shouldn't be on the dinner table.

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I booked my diving through the main local operator, Dive! Tutukaka. I'm glad I booked ahead as most days I was out were booked solid with divers. The dive shop was located right next to the marina for easy access. The staff was experienced, friendly, and rather funny. The equipment was in good working order, and I was impressed that they had dive computers on all their setups. The dive operation was quite vast. They ran five boats of various sizes (I think five boats. Maybe 6.) which went to different locations in the area. An added bonus were the optional lunches for $10, which I found quite good. A day on the boat, two dives, full gear, and guide (if needed) ran $225 New Zealand, which seemed to be about the standard price for the area.

Going out to the islands takes about an hour from Tutukaka. On my first day out I was lucky and our boats ran across a pod of dolphins near shore. The islands are not really all that big, and it doesn't take much time to sail around them. In between dives our skippers would do a slow tour of the islands showing off its various natural wonders. These include several large arches and the world's largest sea cave (by volume). The area wasn't too busy the first couple of days, but as the holiday season kicked off the number of small private boats in the area increased significantly. Luckily this didn't impact the diving and usually we were the only boat at a particular dive site.

Much like my dive in Japan, the subtropical makeup of the Poor Knights meant a whole lot of kelp. In fact quite a bit of kelp. Kelp forests. I'd never seen so much kelp in my life and was surprised by the environment. Fish swam through the kelp, slugs hid behind leaves, and divers weeded their way through it in search of photos. Plus the swaying of the kelp was kind of hypnotic at times. The best part of the subtropical setting is that you can touch anything. Unlike a coral reef where a misplaced fin might kill 100 years of coral growth the kelp forest is durable. Not only is it near impossible to actually rip off kelp, even if you did it would grow back in a few weeks. Kudos to you kelp. For a list of all the fish, plant, and animal life found around the Poor Knights check out this webpage.

The various fish in the area were quite friendly. It was quite easy to just rest among the kelp and let the fish swim around you. In the first picture below you can see a massive school of Blue Mao Mao engulfing my dive buddy. The dive site of Blue Mao Mao arch is rather famous for attracting large schools of these fish during the day. The site is the main reason Jacques Cousteau put the Poor Knights on his top ten list of dive sites. The bottom right picture has two Mao Mao fish facing off, possibly to mate.

I was also lucky enough to see some interesting larger fish. Most days I ran across quite a few eels hanging out among the rocks. I was even lucky enough to see a carpet shark sleeping between some rocks.

The Poor Knights is also known as mating grounds for various Sting Rays. Long tailed rays, short tailed rays, and eagle rays are a very common sight around the islands. During various times of the year its possible to see hundreds of rays hanging out together on some of the outer islands. The rays I saw ranged from small baby rays, to rays well over a meter and a half in size. Very beautiful creatures to watch when swimming. For some interesting ray video check out the end of the post.

While I do love fish I became slightly obsessed with taking photos of the various nudibranchs found around the islands. Nudibranchs being sea slugs. I'd say a good 25% of all the photos I took under water were of nudibranchs. As you can see below there are quite a few different types. Some no more than a few centimeters long, while others were longer than my hands.

The first two photos below show the common clown slug in various stages of procreation. The one on the left shows a slug laying its eggs, while the one on the right shows two slugs in the act of mating. The bottom two photos are of very large slugs. You can clearly see the gills on the back of each slug.

The third day of diving I took a break from the Poor Knights and decided to do some wreck diving. Close to Tutukaka are the wrecks of the HMNZS Waikato and the HMNZS Tui which were sank just for diving fun. Both wrecks are in various states of plant and fish growth and are fun dives. The only problem for me were the murky waters and the colder temperatures. I included some video of the wrecks below, if you care to see more of them.

Some pictures of me diving. You'll notice that I'm wearing a hood and a rather thick wetsuit. Thats because the water was only 19 C at the Poor Knights, and even less at the wrecks. It was cold. Probably as cold as I could handle. Many divers were wearing dry suits, and I kind of wish I had one when diving.

Lastly some video I took while diving, in case you wanted to see some fish or sting rays in action.

I really enjoyed diving the Poor Knights. Its a wonderful spot to go diving and I'd gladly go again. One of the best aspects of the islands, at least for me, were that they weren't busy. Even though it was the peak time of the year I never felt crowded at any dive site and often felt as if I had the whole ocean to myself. I can only imagine what the area is like during the cold winter season. Maybe next time.

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