Lembeh Strait diving

 

After leaving the rainforest we headed further east to the town of Bitung where we met the boat that was ferrying us over to the dive "resort" we were staying at. I put resort in quotes because we were staying at the cheapest place we could find! It may not have been up to the high standards of fancy hotel travellers, but it was perfect for us. Our cottage was the second from the left and we were right next to a neat Dutch couple starting out on a year-long trip around the world (we had much to discuss). While Lembeh Island itself looks gorgeous, we barely spent any time on land because we were here to dive. Lembeh Strait is famous for muck diving - which basically means that you are diving over what looks like sand but the habitat is loaded with small, incredible treats that you have to look closely for to find.

 

In this photo Jay is hovering over some perfect muck diving habitat. There is an anemone in this shot and a few anemonefish. What this photo shows is important - if you look at the wide-angle view you won't see much but if you look down and focus on tiny things, a whole new world opens up. See all the photos below for examples!

Frogfish pretending to be a sponge.

Here is a frogfish video we shot: http://youtu.be/Ud_Mi2odlYY. They don't really move much, nonetheless it is kinda fun to see how they don't move much. 

Here I am with an octopus (bottom left corner)

Same octopus putting on a show for us

This is a different species called the WONDERPUS. No wonder, it was wonderful! And here is a video of another octopus: http://youtu.be/RE-jBBLltns
and another one: http://youtu.be/gqNA5kJ08Kc

This shrimp was chillin' on an anemone tentacle.

More neat shrimp video here: http://youtu.be/HBFOXtQCvNY

Banggai cardinalfish - only found here and one other spot in the world.

Here is a neat moray eel hunting video: http://youtu.be/CAJ3lriUINk

These nudibranchs are having sex! Hee hee.

Could this be more nudibranch sex? I'm not sure....

Alas, this one needs a partner. Did I mention that nudibranchs are boys and girls at the same time? This makes finding a partner quite easy. 

Ornate ghost pipefish - Solenostomus paradoxus. We are guessing that the larger pipefish with the big belly is the male and the smaller one is the female.

The view from the boat as we approach our cottage

By far the rarest species that we saw of all was this one (I am being sarcastic but you need to watch the video to know what I'm talking about):  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLgh9h2ePYw

All our Indonesia photos are here: https://plus.google.com/photos/111221596171793333099/albums/5815735330676677425?banner=pwa