An Exciting Bubble Making Adventure...

Dayang Fun : 21st-24th Sept 2007

noreply@blogger.com (dragondiver) — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 04:27:00 +0000

Sawasdee Kup!

I'm absolutely having lots of fun the past weekend and will be having more till the end of this week. I'm Blogging from the lobby of my Bangkok City Suite as my mates are still sleeping at this time of the day (12 noon Bangkok time). We had a little too much to eat and drink till very late last night. I'm totally relaxed after yesterday's full body massage that lasted a little more than 2 hours! We already visited the famous Suan- Lum Night Bazzar and watch some erotic and amazingly fascinating Thai Girls show with couple specials. Before I get too carried away.....

I was coaxed into the dive trip by Xiangyi as she was badly itching to dive Malaysia's waters before the Monsoon hits. The plan was to dive Tioman with The NTU but that Blur girl as sotong as she always have been, got the whole thing wrong and i eventually realised after confirmation. So we head to Dayang instead. The boat ride to the island was as usual - horrible and long. Dayang looked much more deteriorated since the last time i was there. The beach front at the little bay of the dayang resort was corroded by long shore drift right to the resort's concrete foundations. The corals were pretty much destroyed... The fish life is not as abundant.... and divers' attitude towards Marine conservation have changed. There will soon be nothing left to see in Dayang, at the rate divers and fishermen are taking from the sea.

Disappointment in locating marine life aside, I met lots of old familiar faces. Did a bit of catch up here and there. The most fruitful part was to meet new people, exchange experiences and have lots of fun. Although my dive guide Wen lie was a bit "nuah" but he and others like Ben, Jason, Ken, James, Issac, Shin, Youwen and all were abunch of fun loving and friendly guys - Like all divers do!.... we did lots of funny and crazy stuffs together and was definitely memorable.

Till I'm back from Bangkok, I'll blog more about the divesites, marine life and the fun we had in greater depth. So guys wait on for the photos and more report!

Ciao! Kup!

Bali Photos-- Upload in progress>>>>>>70% done

noreply@blogger.com (dragondiver) — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 10:43:00 +0000

Upload of Photos for the 1st 11 dives from my Bali Safari is completed. You may now view them by clicking the link: http://dragondiver.myphotoalbum.com/albums.php

We saw Manta ray, Mola Molas and other interesting macros!!!
Please share your comments. It would be greatly appreciated.

I am still sorting through the rest of the few hundreds of photos...yes, I took more than 2000 ++ photos for this 7 day trip... phew... please bear with me. I hope to post them up by the end of next week.

Ciaos
Long

To the realm of the Gods

noreply@blogger.com (dragondiver) — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 22:31:00 +0000

The Clutches of the Octopus
I was fully embraced by the tentacles of the monster company(Octopus concepts & Franchise PL) I am working for. The past 1 month saw my brain juice sucked, physical energy drained non stop for more than 12 hours each day and having my Off days burned by the humongous Octopus.

The Octopus is relaunching Eski Bar @ Circular road after the refurbishment of its interior and facade. So I became slave to run errands on top of my already busy schedules. The Relaunch is scheduled on the 6th August 2006, just 1 day before I am freed from the Octopus's arms. For on the 7th, I will be levitating to the realm of the Gods.

Bali- The island of the Gods
It had been several months since I last dived. I am really looking forward to this trip. It was pre-planned months ahead just to coincide with the National day period, the annual Mola congregation and to take advantage of the cheap Jetstar flights(SGD$ 200 return including all taxes) . Jingwei, Daphne and I had sat down earlier to draft out a route on the road trip around the paradise island. The dive sites were carefully chosen after research and reviews. We wanted the best out of our time and of course, something of better value for money too. Thus, I emailed a handful of operators in Bali to compare and get the best deal out of them.

We have confirmed a week of fun in Bali come the 7th August. The 5 day Dive Safari of a total of 15 dives will be done with BIDP (Bali International Diving Professionals), a very experienced and established operator which offer reasonable rates. We will be off to dive the best sites, travelling and staying along the way to maximise time from the South to the North of Bali.

We will spend the remaining 2 days in the bustling towns of Kuta and Sanur, making merry shopping and drinking, surfing the famous wave beaches and other water sports. Perhaps, also travel up Gunung Agung for volcano trekking and white-water rafting. Ubud is also a good place to visit for cultural food, souvenirs and spa!

Here's the Itinerary of the Diving Safari!

7th August : Pick up from Airport on arrival (around 10pm),

Transfer to Sanur and overnight stay at Sukun Bali Cottage

8th August : Pick up and check out from hotel

3 Day Dives at Nusa Penida/Nusa Lembongan –
Crystal Bay, Toyapakeh, Blue corner

Accommodation in Tanis Villa Lembongan
www.lembonganisland.com

9th August : 3 x Day Dives Nusa Penida –
Manta Point, Crystal Bay and Malibu Point

After diving transfer to Padang Bai

1 x Night Dive - Blue Lagoon

Transfer to Tulamben

Accommodation Matahari Tulamben

10th August : 3 x Day Dives at Tulamben- Seraya Secrets, USAT Liberty Ship Wreck, Dropoff

1 x Night Dive - USAT Liberty shipwreck

Overnight stay Matahari Tulamben

11th August : Transfer to Puri Jati

3 x day dives at Puri Jati (PJ, PJ West and Lovina)

1x Night dive at Puri Jati

Overnight stay at Aditya Lovina www.adityalovina.com

12th August : Dolphin Watching In the morning at Lovina's Bay

Transfer to your Kuta

Visit Temples, Rice Terraces, Volcano scenery along the way

Free and Easy

13th August : Free and Easy

14th August : Free and Easy

Check out from hotel and transfer to airport by BIDP

Hantu Blog's 3rd Anniversary Dive Part FIVE

noreply@blogger.com (dragondiver) — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 01:17:00 +0000

The light of the apricot sun vanished over world's end, signalling the start of a dark adventure beneath the waves...

25 March 2007

Dive No. 4 - Denizens of the Dark Waters
Dive Site: Western Fringing Reef (Flabellina Garden)
Location: Pulau Hantu Besar
Visibilty: 3 m
Temperature: 29°C
Maximum Depth: 13.7 m
Actual Bottom Time: 61 mins
Time In: 1912 hrs

A truely unique experience and a rare chance to brave the dark side of Pulau Hantu. Due to the challenging and limited visibility, Hantu's waters are rarely dived at night. We were one of the fortunate few who had the opportunity to explore Hantu's nocturnal reef life. The fringing reef was bustling with activities after sunset and was like a circus of crabs and shrimps! Check out some of the specimens that you don't usually find diurnally.

Red Egg Crab (Atergatis integerrimus)

We came across 2 specimens of this species resting among the reef. They do not get spooked easily with the divers' careful approach. They are usually found in intertidal regions and down to about 50 metres, on rocky, coral, or mud shores. So we actually get plenty of them on Singapore's seashores.

The Red Egg Crab is a large oval shaped crab, with a wide and long, arc-shaped front edge to the carapace. It grows to a carapace width of about 12 cm.

The front of the carapace is extremely broad compared to the rear, which is quite indistinct. Two thirds of the way around its carapace edge, a blunt bump divides the front from the very short side and rear edges. The upper surface of the carapace is convex (curving outwards) and is quite smooth, without any major spines. It has large equal-sized chelae with brown or black fingers(pincers). Its legs often have distinct crests. The males of dark-fingered crabs have the usual complement of seven abdominal segments reduced to five by having segments three to five fused together. The Red Egg Crab is uniform light brown to reddish brown in colour, with white "lace-work" mottling on the carapace and brown spotted limbs. Underneath the carapace is cream in colour. The Red Egg Crab is poisonous and should not be consumed.

Oceanids Swimming Crab (Thalamita admete)

This is a fairly common swimming crab in Singapore waters. There are alot of similar species. Thalamita admete is distinct because the females have bright blue legs. The males are just drab orange-brown with spots. This Swimming Crab is classified under the genera of Thalamita because it has four teeth on each side of the frontal edge of its carapace whereas the Charybdis species have got five teeth. Swimming crabs are very good swimmers and can move very quickly on the reef. They are defensive and can inflict considerable painful wounds so are best left alone.

Cleaner Rock Shrimp (Urocaridella sp.)

This undescribed species is strictly related to Urocaridella antonbrunii but is recognised by its very transparent body and its much sparser white and red spotting. Its behaviour is similar to U. antonbrunii which I have described in an earlier post here.

This Urocardella sp. is pregnant with eggs under its belly. Take a closer look.

Red-Scissor Slender Shrimp (Kemponia tenuipes)

Sometimes also known as a Ghost Shrimp or Carid Shrimp. It probably derived its name from "tenuipes" which means slender/thin in Latin referring to the very long & thin first pair of arms. Incidentally, this & other long-armed shrimps which were formerly known from the subfamily of "Periclimenes" have been transferred to the genus Kemponia so the new name is Kemponia tenuipes. Kemponia is probably named for the british crustacean expert S.W. Kemp who did extensive research into the classification of their genus.

K. tenuipes is a very distinct species of shrimps with a pair of very long chelipeds tipped in orange-red colour. There are usually orange/red/yellow spots at its joints along the length of its chelipeds. They are small and are difficult to spot due to their almost transparent bodies. These long-armed shrimps are mostly found among coral rubble and in crevices. I have seen alot of these in the Similans but none of them seemed to exhibit any commensalistic behaviours(unlike shrimps of the genus Periclimenes) on other sea creatures such as anemones, seastars and urchins. This could probably be one of the reasons they were extracted out of the commensalistic family of Periclimenes as K. tenuipes is discovered to be a type of free-living shrimp.

There are 2 Emerpeor Shrimps and 1 Carid Shrimp within the interior of this Barrel sponge. Can you see them? Click the photograph above or see below for magnification.

Carid Shrimp (Kemponia cf. tenuipes)

This is apparently another species variation of K. tenuipes and appears undescribed(or I can't find reference to it). I have observed it on a few occasions(in Sg and Lang Tengah) within barrel sponges like the one above or in branching colonies of hard corals. As with nominal species of Carid shrimps, it has the characteristic long chelipeds but without bright colour markings. It is generally transparent with longitudinal red line along its body.

Emperor Shrimp (Periclimenes cf. imperator)

They usually show some degree of variation in their livery, possibly in relation to their choice of host. This small shrimp is less than 1 cm. They can be easily approached without difficulties.

Minstrel Shrimp (Metapenaeopsis hilarula)

This crustacea may locally be known as a prawn due to its larger size( carapace length of > 5 cm), but it is strictly a shrimp. As per defined by scientists, families of Decapods belonging to Infraorders; PENAEIDEA and CARIDEA are separately named shrimps and prawns due to their natural habitat. Shrimps are saltwater dwelling whereas prawns thrive in freshwater. Strictly, some saltwater genus should not be called prawns because of their larger dinner table size.

The Minstrel Shrimp is distributed around the Indo-pacific region from S.E Africa to Malaya. They are often found buried in muddy substrate and at night. They can be easily located with their glimming pair of eyes when you shine your torch over them.

Overall, this night dive was a very interesting one(as usual cos I love night dives!!). It was a dive filled with all the decapods crawling around busy with their work as they started their day nocturnally. The day with the Hantu Bloggers was really fruitful with all the startling finds I'd never expect to find in Singapore waters. A message out to all: Keep preserving Singapore's reef through conservation efforts(like what Hantu Bloggers are doing) and you'll see more of the living treasures of Singapore's own!

Sorry about the long delay of this last post due to very busy work schedules. Will try to find time to post up all the interesting encounters on my Lang Tengah and Similans trip. So wait on guys!

Hantu Blog's 3rd Anniversary Dive Part FOUR

noreply@blogger.com (dragondiver) — Sat, 05 May 2007 06:13:00 +0000

25 March 2007

Dive No. 3 - Eyes of the Sunset Reef
Dive Site: Western Patch Reef (Cigar reef)
Location: Pulau Hantu Besar
Visibilty: 3 m
Temperature: 29°C
Maximum Depth: 13.7 m
Actual Bottom Time: 61 mins
Time In: 1712 hrs

We started on the Western Fringing reef and slowly moved north west to reach the Patch Reef. Along the way, Jimmy spotted an Octopus that swooped into a tiny crevice. Debby and I waited patiently for it to emerge but this intelligent creature just hid there motionless, only roving its eyes to check us out.

Can you tell the Octopus apart from the substrates of the reef? Look for its Eyes, it is looking directly at you!

There were lots of giant Mud Reef Gobies (Exyrias bellissimus) darting from hole to hole on the sandy reef. These fishes have large eyes above their head so they are sensitive to movements within their enhanced vision. As with other species of gobies, they are difficult to approach and will dash for the nearest hole when there's sudden advancement.

The Mud Reef Goby watched the approaching diver(me) cautiously while sifting through the muddy silt for food particles before darting off....

I came across an exposed tail of an unsuspecting fish. Curiosity got the better of me -I had to investigate. I tickled the tail of this fish to encourage it to emerge from the other side. It worked... A pair of sapphire eyes glittered and snared out at me! The fish was complete with 3 venomous spines and barbels. It grinned like an irritated cat before disappearing into a cramped crevice. That was unmistakably an Eel-tail Catfish. It was a pity that I missed capturing that crux moment when the mesmerising blue eyes interacted with me.

Tale of an Eel...... or not!

Despite their small size, Nudibranchs are among the showiest and the most interesting creatures of the reef. As I have previously introduced, Nudibranchs are sea slugs with no internal or external shell. They are so called Nudibranch because most species have a more or less evident tuft of gills on its dorsal mantle surface like the C. fidelis below. From Greek-latin to English context, Nudibranch is translated as "Naked-gills". You may be surprised to know that Nudibranchs actually have eyes! Their microscopic eyes sit deep inside the body on top of the brain. Although these slugs have eyes, these small black spheres cannot see images and colours of the reef. They are only able to distiguish light and dark which may warn the slug of predators by detecting shadows and are time keepers to help the slugs stay informed of day and night. What they lack in vision, they make up for it in ultra chemo-sensitivity. They have a pair of receptacles with tentacle-like retractable projections called the Rhinophores. Literally translated from 2 classic Greek words: "Rhino" = nose, and "Phore" = carrier. It is an organ of sensory "smell". The rhinophores can pick up scents of food, mates and even of predators.

Reliable Chromodoris (Chromodoris fidelis) "sensing" the water column for directions to its food sources and mates.

Flatworms have tentacles at the anterior end and often have brilliant colours they are occasionally mistaken for nudibranchs. But in contrast to nudibranchs, tentacles are mostly simple folds of the anterior margin. They can move along much faster than nudibranchs, are much thinner and tend to break up if handled. Furthermore, they don't have special respiratory organs (gills) as respiration is performed by diffusion through the worms entire surface. Polyclads exhibit a wide variety in colour pattern and texture. They have marginal ruffles tending to increase in number with size. Except opaque species which are black or mainly black, most species are transparent and their internal organs can be seen through the epidermis. Especially the ovaries can be bright red or deep purple and can influence the colour of the dorsal surface.
The anterior cerebrial ganglion knot and its large interneurons resemble the worm's "brain" analyzing nerve signals coming in from numerous photo- and chemosensitive cells which are concentrated mainly on head and pseudotentacles. Additionally, a high number of mechanoreceptors are dispersed throughout the epidermis. Photosensitive cells can be found in the cerebral eyespot where numerous eyes appear to form round clusters. Further eyes are located on the ventral and dorsal pseudotentacles. These eyes are not capable of forming images but are sensitive to changes in light direction and intensity. When flatworms sense bright light they usually retreat to a darker place.

Compared to vertebrates, the organization of polyclad eyes is quite simple. This type of eye, which lacks any lens, has been described as "pigment cup ocellus". Ocelli are part of the cerebral eyespot and are composed of several photosensitive cells and a concave cup. The walls of the cup contain pigments prohibiting light penetration from three sites. The light sensitive portions of the cells, microvilli, are arranged inside the opaque cup such a way that they can only be exposed by light from one single direction. Depending on the angle of incoming light, shadows fall onto the photosensitive structures. Since the cup can be actively rotated by muscles a quickly changing shadow pattern is generated. Corresponding excitatory nervous signals are sent to the cerebral ganglion where the information is analyzed and used for threedimensional orientation and appropriate behavioral reactions. -Text and Sketches of Flatworm adapted from: Anatomy of Polyclad Flatworms © Marine Flatworms of the World, Wolfgang Seifarth 1997-2002, All Rights Reserved!

A huge polyclad Flatworm (Pseudobiceros gratus)

A large Blue-spotted Fantail Stingray (Taeniura lymna) staring at me with its sinister looking eyes, warning me not to provoke it or else...... I thought of Steve Irwin for a moment and decided to ascend instead....

Hantu Blog's 3rd Anniversary Dive Part THREE

noreply@blogger.com (dragondiver) — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 04:50:00 +0000

25 March 2007

Dive No. 2 - Operation Rescue
Dive Site: Southern Jetty
Location: Pulau Hantu Besar
Visibilty: 3 m
Temperature: 29°C
Maximum Depth: 13.7 m
Actual Bottom Time: 53 mins
Time In: 1335 hrs

We headed out in different groups and this dive turned out to be more than just fruitful. In fact, it was meaningful for most of us who rendered the release of trapped animals. There were bubus around the shallows laid down by fishermen. Most were discarded but some were still functional as traps for marine creatures. Those of us, who happened to come across enmeshed fishes, tried our best to extricate them unharmed. We yielded successful outcome.

I was surprised at first, when I noticed a Spanish Flag Snapper (Lutjanus carponotatus) laying perfectly motionless and head down in an unconventional position. Then I saw a hook in its jaw. I thought it was dead but as I approached, it put up a bit of futile struggle to break free from its painful entanglement. Before I set to release it, I checked the line... It was slacked. Debby came to my aid and together, we unhooked and disengaged the animal. It swam free... turning back again glancing at us as if with some sort of gratitude.

Afterwards onboard the boat, Geraldine told us they've encountered a strange shark trapped in a bubu but was also released unharmed. Chayhoon, Gina and some others also set free trapped fishes along their dive path. It was collectively a conservation effort by all who have a heart for the marine lives of Singapore.

The strange epaulette shark turned out to be a White-spotted Bamboo Shark (Chiloscyllium plagiosum) which is listed on IUCN Red List of Threatened species. See info here
The above shark photo is copyrighted and taken by Geraldine

Here are the other fantastic encounters:

The crawling jewels of the sea...

Black-margined Glossodoris (Glossodoris atromarginata)

Another purplish-orange colour variant of the Bullock's Hypselodoris (Hypselodoris bullockii).

My first sighting of The Emma's Hypselodoris (Hypselodoris emmae). Guess what? Take a closer look... It's laying its orange-red egg ribbon!!!

A Gold Speckled Flatworm (Thysanozoan nigropapillosum)

Then it was the little stuffs on the sea whips...

Allied Cowries

Left: An allied cowry extending its mantle to feed and digest part of the sea whip.

Right: A White-lined Whip Goby (Bryaninops amplus) living on its sea whip host.

Other interesting finds....
An almost perfectly camouflaged Crocodile Fish (Cymbacephalus beauforti) lying in the sandy bed. One way to differentiate Flatheads from Crocodilefish is to look into their eyes. Crocodilefish will interest most Macro aficionados. Close up shots of their jewel like eyes with their frilled eye lids or the details of the complex carpet-like decorations on their body are surefire winners.

A Carpet Eel-Blenny (Congrogadus subducens) is also called a Wolf Eel but it is neither an Eel nor a Blenny. In fact it's a Dottyback. It has a long body that's shaped like an eel's and is capable of changing its colour. The fish is sexually dimorphic - the female is pinkish brown while the male is green.

A school of Yellow-tail Barracudas swam pass as Debby and I prepared to ascend.

Hantu Blog's 3rd Anniversary Dive Part TWO

noreply@blogger.com (dragondiver) — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 06:06:00 +0000

25 March 2007

Dive No. 1 - Sexy Sea Slugs
Dive Site: Northern Jetty
Location: Pulau Hantu Kechil
Visibilty: 2 m
Temperature: 29°C
Maximum Depth: 12.5 m
Actual Bottom Time: 66 mins
Time in: 1050 hrs

The waters in this narrow channel on the nothern side of P. Hantu was seemingly calm from the surface. The nearby reclaimation works on Pulau Bukom transmitted amplified sound waves underwater. Luckily, the head throbbing vibrations ceased a few minutes after we descended.
I buddied Debby and Jimmy and we worked west really slowly towards the Northern Jetty. As with any other muck habitats, the critter encounters were overwhelming. The following are some of the fauna I managed to photograph on just a single dive and amazingly, they were found in the highly discriminated waters of Pulau Hantu!

A Rosy Spindle Cowry (Phenacovolva rosea) that Jimmy pointed out to me on a gorgonian just under the jetty.

I flipped over a large piece of brown rotting Mangrove Apple leaf with my rod and guess what was clinging to it on the underside? A large and well camouflaged Dorippid Crab (Dorippe sp.)! The Brachyuran Crab pictured above belonged to the subfamily Dorippinae, family Dorippidae MacLeay, 1838. It is adapted to carry bivalve shells, leaves, jellyfishes, anemones, urchins or other objects on their backs by using the hooked dactyli of their last two pairs of pereiopods, which are dorsally located and mobile. The rare find of this Dorippid Crab in shallow waters of about 8m and its large carapace length of about 10 cm, narrowed its genera to the Dorippinae subfamily. This specific subfamily of the Brachyuran is only found in the Indo-pacific region and in shallow waters. They are larger in size as compared to their other Dorippid (Ethusinae) cousins which inhibits deep waters (>1000m). This subfamily consists of the following clades: Dorippe, Medorippe, Dorippoides, Neodorippe, Heikea, Paradorippe and Philippidorippe. Little information is known about the affinities and distinctions between the clades. Judging from the length of its eye peduncles, pereiopods and the shape of its carapace, I would deduce it to be from the Dorippe species and it sure looks uncannily alike to Dorippe quadridens. It has numerous bristle-like hairs over its surface to enable it to trap silt and sand particles for camouflage. The puzzling feature of this crab though is its missing chelipeds(the frontal pair of clawed limbs).

A vicious blood red Swimming Crab (Thalamita spinimana) holding out its pair of pincers, ready to strike!

After I lost Debby and Jimmy nearing the end of my dive, I was surprised to have had found at least 4 different individuals of the Orange-spotted Pipefish (Corythoichtys ocellatus) swim-wriggling around the sponge and algae covered pillars of the jetty.

A Bristle-tail Filefish (Acreichtys tomentosum) hovering near discarded metal pipes now overgrown with hydroids, algae and sponges. This species can sometimes be easily confused with its Strapweed cousin. Look for the characteristic elongated white patch which extends behind the gills.

Orange-edged Black Flatworm (Pseudobiceros hancockanus)

Unidentified Polyclad Flatworm... Need a little help on ID here..thanks

Undescribed Flatworm (Pseudoceros sp.)

Gold Speckled Flatworm (Thysanozoan nigropapillosum)

Left: A cuttle fish egg sac was laid down in the mud waiting to be hatched.

Right: The Pustulose Phyllidiella (Phyllidiella Pustulosa) is a Nudibranch commonly found in Singapore's waters.

Left: Managed to get the backside shot of the Reliable Chromodoris (Chromodoris fidelis) as it was wriggling into a muddy crevice.

Right: A Cake-icing Chromodoris (Chromodoris tumulifera) with its gills retracted into its branchial pockets.

The beautiful Bullock's Hypselodoris (Hypselodoris bullockii) seems to thrive well in muck environment like the waters of Singapore.

Intricately patterned Painted Hypselodoris (Hypselodoris infucata) raced across the silty bottom in search of food sources.

The Blue Dragon (Pteraeolidia ianthina) farm zooxanthellae in its cerata as a supplement to its basic diet of hydroids.

The Red-lined Flabellina (Flabellina rubrolineata) stores stinging nematocysts in the tips of its cerata as a defense mechanism. It obtains the stinging cells from its dietary hydroids and discharge them when harrassed.

Sex in the Sea

As functional simultaneous Hermaprodites, Ophisthobranchs maintain active male and female sex organs on every individual with reproductive pores generally postioned on the right side of their necks. The same species recognise each other by chemo-reception. Contact of body and rhinopores is made and there is a certain amount of courtship. They crawl around each other, lining up their genital openings. Copulation may continue for several hours or even days. Mating is performed by injecting sperm into one another simultaneously. Reciprocal receipt of sperm is through everted genital organs.

A little sketch in my logbook

Colour variations in Hypselodoris Bullockii is fairly common. They ranged from full purple forms, to pink, or even white specimens. Mating of the differnt colour forms are evidence of them being the same species as to what was previously debated in ID and anatomy.

Pulau Lang Tengah, Terrenganu Malaysia

noreply@blogger.com (dragondiver) — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 07:15:00 +0000

Pulau Lang Tengah - Eagles resting in the middle Island

30th March - 3rd April 2007

It happened almost a fortnight ago. It was a trip full of good and bad experiences for some of us. Honestly, my personal review of the overall is a mere disappointment - save for the wonderful company of friends which I had the privilege of diving with.

It had been 5 years since I returned to visit this small island off the coast of Terengganu in Peninsular Malaysia. Alot has changed. The pristine reefs were much reduced to mostly dead corals in the western bay of the island where we resided. The fond memories of numerous colourful thriving reef fishes and swarming blacktip reef sharks swimming in close proximity to the Blue Coral beach was significantly circumcised. Pulau Lang Tengah is a very small island located between Pulau Perhentian and Pulau Redang. This little island is accessible by a 45-minute boat ride from the Merang jetty. According to locals, Lang Tengah takes its name from 'Lang' which comes from 'helang', literally translated as 'eagle' in the Malay language, and 'tengah', meaning 'middle'. Thus, Lang Tengah means eagles resting on the middle island.

Although the resorts have reopened their doors after the passing of the North-east monsoon, the season was not in its full fledging state. The peak usually occurs in the months of June to August annually. There have been significant thwarting effects caused by the El~nino. We generally enjoyed sunny weather and calm seas but ocassional storms whipped up crashing waves, spewing rains and gusting winds. The visibility of the waters at most divesites was bad and there was not much marine diversity.

The Dive Guide and my Khakis - From left: Lingjun, Yijie, Me, Aung('DM'), Alex, Jingwei, Xiangyi and Daphne.

We put up at Redang Lang Resort. It is situated in the middle of a long stretch of white powdery sand beach. At the south-western shore of this beach is the now defunct Blue Coral Resort where I used to stay 5 years ago. There is a wide range of amentities and services at Redang Lang Resort, including the Delang Dive centre, Karaoke Bar, Minimart, TV hut, massage services, Mahjong, pool table, volleyball courts and etc. Although I would not term the resort as very good, it is definitely comfortable. Rooms were well furnished with air-conditioning, double beds and attached private restrooms with hot showers. The food was an overall acceptable but not fantastic. Resort staffs are subjectively exclusive. We had a few minior hiccups with some of them but most were accomodating - except for some patronising individuals...

On the day of arrival, we were already greeted with disorganised and uninformed system of operation. There was no proper information about the time of the 1st dive, equipment rental, person in-charge and etc. Check-in was at own time own target. There was no introduction to resort amenities and urshering to our rooms was done by ourselves. Basic resort management and customer service seemed to be lacking. To our further dismay, the dive centre did not prepare enough equipment for rental despite us confirming our trip details months ahead of arrival. Planning for equipment sharing was done at the last minute. The most horrible part was that one of the resort employees mentioned that our diveguide was a non certified 'divemaster' because the dive centre deemed it is cheaper to pay a guide rather than employing a DM. What was worse is when our 'DM' told us he had never been on a night dive before throughout his 3 years of diving experience. That was abit hard for us to swallow. He insisted that he did not have any divelight for that matter and implicitly tried to dissuade us from going on a night dive. Throughout our stay, we sort of discovered more unpleasant details such as the dive centre allowed their customers to use our own personal equipment, restricting the night dive to only at the house reef and our dear guide's lame excuses to avoid working overtime on our arrival day- that and all resulted in his tips slashed half the initially agreed amount.

Evening sumptous BBQ Dinner and Early morning Shark watching were some of the good times we had...

I logged my 100th dive this trip but sadly it was a far cry from anything spectacular. There are only a hand full of divesites around Lang Tengah. Our bromidic diving was further limited to divesites running along the western coast of the small island only. Out of the 8 dives, only 1 dive was considered satisfactory.

Diving and Snorkeling Fun!

Nonetheless, I enjoyed great companionship with fun-loving friends. Lingjun had done a good job organising this trip although deplorable incidences happened unexpectedly along the way. It was unfortunate for Daphne and Jingwei for their monetary loss at the Malaysian customs even before fun commenced. We were glad that somehow, they managed and even decided to continue with the trip. We shared many good times at diving, snorkelling, sun-tanning, mahjong, photo taking, beach volleyball, dive logging, meal times and other social communion where laughter seemed perennial.

The Eagles leaving the middle island.... but not before a group Photo (Yijie running in the background)

Hantu Blog's 3rd Anniversary Dive Part ONE

noreply@blogger.com (dragondiver) — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 00:48:00 +0000

Abstract

An eventful day with fruitful finds. We enjoyed blessed fine weather throughout the day and blazing rays of the sun scorched our complexion to a nice golden tan. We did a total of 4 dives(3 day and 1 night dive)on the thriving reef of Pulau Hantu. This small little island south western of Singapore's mainland lies in the heart of a busy shipping port of call. The obscuring visibility(caused by land reclamation and heavy vessel traffic) did not deter us from enjoying the show of the critter circus performed live at our very own backyard!

A pair of Hypselodoris bullockii (Nudibranch) engaged in hermaproditic mating! The 2 different colour variations found each other by chemo-reception, identifying one another as the same species.

We dived at different sites around Hantu's reef and the diversity of the marine life is truely amazing. Large concentrations of colourful nudibranchs, polycladidia, crabs, shrimps, cowries, fishes and even sharks abound... Healthy coral colonies such as Goniopora sp., Euphyllia ancrora, Porites lobata, Favites abdita, turbinaria reniformis, Lobophyllia hemprichii, Pachyseris rugosa thrives... A myriad of anemones, sponges, acropora, sea whips, gorgonians and seagrass play hosts to interesting creatures. The list is infinitely endless...

The frilled jewel eye of a crocodile fish.

Poor Snapper was hooked on a fishing line struggling to break free.

Some of us even did a part in marine conservation by involving in rescue missions. Geraldine, Marcel and Kelvin helped set free a coral Epaulette Shark entrapped within a Bubus. Chay Hoon and Gina also freed a few anglefish and Butterflyfish. While Debby and I released a yellow snapper caught hooked on a discarded fishing line. It was fulfilling seeing these animals swim free about the open waters they call home.

Intertidal walk too deep..... and an island trail too brief.....

We disembarked onto Hantu Besar during a surface interval for an island trail and lagoon walk. The shades of greenery on the island were definitely refreshing!

The viridian of Hantu Island and the tangerine Sunset beneath the azure skies

What an anniversary day at Pulau Hantu... It is indeed a Celebration of Marine Life!

Stay affirmed on this blog on updates and more captivating photos of the 3rd Anniversary Dives!

North Sulawesi, Manado - Part 5 : Relishing Bunaken's Marine diversity once more

noreply@blogger.com (dragondiver) — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 04:09:00 +0000

Manado Dive Travel - 11 to 15 November 2006

Partie Cinq de Six

Jour Quatre : Tuesday, 14 November 2006

Bunaken Marine Diversity - Enjoying A Good Mix of Big and Small

Embracing the wonders of Bunaken....
It was to be our last day of undersea adventures in Manado. We could only do a maximum of 3 dives before fulfilling a minimum of 24 hours before our flight next day.

We had a bit of discussion about where to go and what to see on this last day. The majority(Michelle and Alex) voted against macro so we were off to see pelagics in the deep blue.
I had no violent objection as I thought of watching some big deep sea fishes as well.

We reviewed the sites around Bunaken Marine Park and found some famous sites possible for pelagic encounters with the Napolean Wrasse, Barracudas, Sharks and Jacks. It's hard to decide which sites we wanted to do, so we asked the expert(Noldi) for opnions and off we set out, placing absolute trust in him that we'll get to see what we asked for!

We were again blessed with good and fair weather on the last day out at sea. We were enjoying each and every moment, tanning under the warm rays and riding over the cool waters.

The Hues of the Deep Blue
Dive Site: Tanjung Kopi
Location: Manado Tua
Visibilty: 35 m
Temperature: 27°C
Maximum Depth: 39.7 m

This site features dramatic walls and deep recesses of up to a few hundreds metres. Tanjung Kopi can be translated to mean Coffee Point but the reason for this name remains a mystery. It lies on the north of Manado Tua which is dormant but not totally extinct as volcano activity is still reported. This is the place where deep underwater exploration was carried out to study the Coelacanth, a deep sea living fossil of a prehistoric fish thought to have been extinct long ago but was recently discovered thriving healthily here.

The dive site's main attraction is a sloping underwater plateau that descends from 5 to 30 metres, fringed with a vertical wall that drops off to over 80 metres. You can see the hardened lava flow, remnants of past eruptions of Manado Tua. This is a site for the experienced only as currents can be very strong. An experienced dive guide is essential for diving here, as entry at the correct point is critical. This is the ideal location in Bunaken to see the bigger fish species.

For people who love beautiful views of coral life, this site offers some of the best soft coral gardens at Manado Tua. The colourful corals, abundant reef fishes, big fish actions and the the fantastic visibility makes this site highly recomended. There's also opportunities for macro as shrimps, slugs and worms crawl among the hues of the blues here. One thing to mention in particular about this site is, it is overgrown with hydroids big and small, especially a long feathery purple species which looked really beautiful. I was not careful and accidentally brushed my right wrist against one of such long purple duster. I was ensnared with a horrendous wound that made me cried painfully underwater....

The grandeur of Manado Tua Island itself will leave you fascinated about how the magnificient
underwater topography, outlined by the larva flow, was formed eons ago.

A small school of barracudas swimming in the current above us... the sunrays casted shadows of their unmistakable identity.

Spanish Mackerel (Scomberomorus commerson)

A very impressive, torpedo shaped predator that cruised past me while I was on the plateau's edge. This is a pelagic species that hunts ocassionally along slopes and dropoffs on the outer reefs in deep waters. It has a steel- silver body marked with several wavy dark bars. It usually hunts alone or sometimes in small roving schools raiding the reefs. It is a predator built for speed with pointed head, large round eyes and a great falcate tail.

Loki Whip Goby (Bryaninops loki)

A typically reddish orange species that tend to spend its entire life on the same single host. It is usually found in current prone areas and tidal channels. They live exclusively on Sea Whips and gorgornians. Whip gobies tend to move and hide on the opposite side of their host away from view when obverved. An assistance from a dive buddy would be an added advantage to keep this elusive fish in the photographer's view.

Broadclub Cuttlefish (Sepia latimanus)

A spectacular and beautiful cuttlefish that can grow to a large size. It will readily allow interaction with divers without showing signs of fear. It can display a broad range of "emotions" by changing its textures and colours with speculative intelligence. If alarmed by sudden movements, it will raise its 2 fore tentacles as a sign of warning in its defensive mode. Variations in colours and skin textures are apparently endless.

Partner Shrimp (Periclemenes soror)

This little shrimp live exclusively in association with sea stars. This specimen was found on the underside of a pincushion star(Culcita novaguineae). It is very small and commonly found in small groups on the same host. They are very shy and will dart to hide immediately if disturbed. Their colouration are highly variable and are always dependent on the colour of its sea star host.

Little Sea Hare (Alypsia parvula)

Showing the typical oral tentacles at the front of the head, on either side of the mouth and the smaller rhinophores just above the eyes. At the back you can see the large parapodial flaps which have a black edge. These parapodia enclose the mantle cavity in which the fragile plate-like shell is found. A black ring outlines the hole (foramen) which leads to the cavity in which the shell is found. Probably the smallest species of Aplysia, reaching a maximium length of about 6cm. The 2 specimens above were found on the same hyroids and algae turf and they are 2 different colour variations of the same species. Often, this species spot a mottled brown or green body, but sometimes a more uniform colour. It usually has a dark border to the parapodia, and the large mantle foramen. The tips of tentacles are usually darker than the background colour.

Polycad Flatworm (Pseudoceros paralaticlavus)

Similar to Pseudoceros jebborum, but the latter has a thin, submarginal, black band while in P. paralaticlavus the black colour is dominating. The background colour is velvety black, with 3 large grey bands, one median and two lateral. Bright distinctive yellow edge. They are associated with colonial ascidians. This specimen above is a tiny juvenile of only about 2 cm.

Rendezvous with Ron's Big shots
Ron's point is a sloping sandy dive site that lies on the southern tip of to the west of Bunaken island. The sandy slope is littered with coral rubble and and the numerous boulders overgrown with soft corals. The terrain here gently slopes down to about 25m and drops off to the deep abyss. The dropoff walls featured dramatic gorgonians fans and a facade of multi-coloured corals that contrasted beautifully against the deep blue of the sea. Ron's point is situated at the mouth of the channel between Bunaken and Manado Tua islands, where currents meet and sweep through trecherously. The currents here can be strong and unpredictable and is a site recommended for the experienced.

On descend, we went down along the walls to a depth of 37.5 m and we did a gradual multi-level ascend to the shallower depths. The currents along the walls here were moving fast and we glided effortless along the drift. The currents changed directions serveral times and we did the same as well. There was a couple of times where we had to fight the down drift to maintain our multi-level ascend.

Expect lots of big fish actions here. There were the ocassional schools of fusiliers, snappers, unicornfish and batfish. The larger fishes moved with tremendous speed. I came across Spanish Mackerels, Giant Trevallies, Dog-tooth Tunas, a Giant Barracuda and a couple of Giant Sweetlips, all crusing the blue with their predatory instincts. Nodi saw a Black-tip Reef Shark which none of us were fortunate enough to share that vision. There were also interesting animals to see on the sandy reef - Groupers, Parrotfishes, Wrasses, Nudibranchs, Garden and Moray Eels as well as the Blue-Spotted Ray.

Alex and Michelle floated to the surface after they were dangerously close to deplete their air supply. I continued with Noldi foraging the flat shallows for critters, also at the same time doing my perpetual safety stop. Not much macro on this dive but the big stuffs would be sufficient to pump a bit of adrenalin through your body for an excitement. The downside would be the incapability of my camera to capture all those wide-angles...

Dive Site: Ron's Point
Location: Bunaken Island
Visibilty: 20 m
Temperature: 28°C
Maximum Depth: 37.5 m

Great Barracuda (Sphyraena barracuda)

A solitary Barracuda cruising the deep blue in search of prey. A giant torpedo that is powerfully built as a fearsome predator.

Round Batfish (Platax orbicularis)

All batfish are fairly large, highly compressed, slow moving, with silvery shining body and a very calm demeanor. They sometimes occur in immense schools which are very impressive to behold. They all feed on algae, vegetable matter and variety of small invertebrates. Their juveniles are solitary and often hide among shallow reefs. Juveniles are often unbelievably different from their adult appearance in terms of shape and colour patterns. The species featured above are easily confused with very similar Platax teira and Platax boersii. Platax orbicularis is distinctly marked with two dark bars on the front of the body- one vertically across the eye and the other across the pectoral fin. It has small black flecks on the sides which are absent in other Platax species.

Spotted Garden Eel (Heteroconger hassi)

Garden eels are usually found in large aggregations on sandy or muddy flat bottoms close to the reefs, often in deep waters and in current prone areas. Their common name derives from their swaying in the current in big numbers, with only the head and the first part of their body emerging like many blades of grass from the substrate. They mainly feed on plankton brought by the current and seldom leave their burrows. This species is easily identified by the two sharp black spots on its finely speckled body. As with all garden eels, this elegant species lives in large colonies. They are partly submerged in the soft bottom and rising with the front part of the body to face the current and feed on the incoming drifting zooplankton. Garden eels are some of the most difficult and frustrating subjects to photograph as they are very sensitive to movements, always ready to slide down to hide in their burrows whenever a diver approach or exhale too loudly from a distance.

Blue-spotted Stingray (Taeniura lymna)

A very commonly observed species. The disc is rounded and is yellowish with several electric blue spots and bright yellow sinister-looking eyes. It also has one or two serrated spines midway along the tail length which is connected to a poison gland. It rarely digs under the sand and can be approached by a cautious diver.

Minor Notordoris (Notordoris minor)

A nudibranch of the family Aegiretidae. As with other species of Notodoris, the skin is toughened with tiny spicules, the upper surface has a few irregular pustules, and the small rhinophores are smooth and simple. The branched gills are situated midway along the body, partially hidden by three large lobes. The animal has a yellow background colour, with a pattern of diagonal and transverse black lines arranged in a network over the entire body. The gills and rhinophores are essentially yellow, but in juveniles, and some adults, there can be some black pigmentation. Notodoris minor can grow to 14 cm in length and feeds on calcareous sponges belonging to the family Leucettidae.

Next: Save the Best for the Last..... The Last dive - best Muck ever!
To be Continued...

Hilarious Video of an underwater "Cycling" adventure

noreply@blogger.com (dragondiver) — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 03:24:00 +0000

I received this clip from Ken, one of the very humorous fun chap from my recent trip to the Similans. He made this clip to illustrate the common mistakes that most newbies or even some old rusty divers may commit. In fact, proper fin kicks are taught as part of the core syllabus during Open Water Course.

There are different styles of finning and the versatility of a proficient diver to use the right style under different the various marine environment is very important. For example, a diver in a muck environment uses minimal effort in finning as he would be travelling very slowly. As the muck environment is always silty, sandy and delicate, the diver hovering close to the bottom must perform a "frog style" kick with his knees bent so as not to disturb the bottom.

Moreover, different kinds of fins requires the diver to fin differently in situations. When a strong current hits a diver with split fins(like the Scubapro twin jets i'm using), he must perform rapid and shallow kicks with knees locked in order to effectively fight the current. A paddle fin diver, on the hand, needs to use strong and powerful wide fin kicks. There's alot about finning techniques and to enjoy bottom time without geting physical stress and cramps, it is imperative to practise the correct way of finning underwater right from the start.

Sit back, relax and enjoy this funny video Starring Kennie, April and Vernon!

Fatal Incident At Pulau Hantu

noreply@blogger.com (dragondiver) — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 22:30:00 +0000

Body of missing diver found in waters off Pulau Hantu
By S Ramesh, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 20 February 2007 1820 hrs

SINGAPORE : The body of a missing diver was found in the waters off Pulau Hantu at around 9.40 am on Tuesday.

Singaporean Sue Qing Wen, who is in his 20s and who had just finished his National Service, was reported missing on Saturday, the eve of the Lunar New Year.

He and several others has gone for their first dive in open waters off Pulau Hantu - as part of their diving certification - but did not make it back.

Pulau Hantu is 15 minutes away from Sentosa by speedboat. Police said they received a call from a member of the public about the body. A diving wet suit and an oxygen tank were also found with the body.

No one responded to Channel NewsAsia's queries when our crew visited his house in Chua Chu Kang. - CNA/ms

S'porean Learner Diver lost Near Pulau Hantu

How did he vanish?

By Arul John (The Electric New paper)

It was Chinese New Year's Eve but he was excited for another reason. Singaporean Sue Qing Wen was going for his first dive in open waters. If he passed, he would soon be certified fit to dive in local and international waters. Everything was planned ahead for the training dive involving 14 divers and nothing was out of place.

But Mr Sue didn't come back on Saturday, like the other divers. He remains missing at press time.

At Mr Sue's home, preparations for the Chinese New Year's Eve reunion dinner was in full swing when the phone rang on Saturday evening. It was the police informing his parents that the eldest son was lost in the waters around Pulau Hantu, a 15-minute speedboat ride from Sentosa.

One of the divers in the group, who declined to be named, said that all 14 divers had assembled at Keppel Marina near VivoCity shopping mall at 7.30am that day. They then boarded a boat to the island for the dive. The group included two dive masters, the boatman, four experienced divers and six student divers, one of whom was Mr Sue. Another diver looked after the other divers' equipment on the boat.

The student divers had taken lessons at a local dive school and were now deemed to be ready for an open sea dive. This would determine if they are ready to be certified capable of diving in local and international waters, said the diver.

'On the way to the dive site, the dive masters reviewed all the lessons we had learnt. They asked us if anyone was unwell or afraid and we even went over the sign language to use to communicate with our fellow divers when in the water. Everyone was well and had no problems,' said the diver.

By 8am, the boat had arrived at the dive site about 40m to 50m off Pulau Hantu. The student divers were paired up and put into two groups, each led by a dive master. Mr Sue was in one group together with another student diver. The other four student divers were in the other group.

At about 8.30am, both groups headed for their first dive - lasting about 30 minutes - to test their oxygen tanks. The divers then rested and did another training exercise.

'We were in the water for about 20 minutes and practised putting on and taking off our diving masks and regulators quickly without panicking. The missing diver - we called him Sue - performed well during both dives and he looked well,' said the diver. At about noon, the larger group went into the water and dived in single file along the anchor line - the chain leading from the boat to its anchoring point about 10m below the surface.

'We were going to practise what to do if our air supply was cut off or disrupted. The smaller group dived in about a minute after the first group went in and they followed down the anchor line too. The dive master was moving around and supervising what was happening. Suddenly, he went to Sue's partner and asked him using sign language where he was. Sue's partner pointed up, indicating that he might have gone to the surface. The dive master went up to the surface but didn't find Sue there,' said the diver.

What could have happened to Mr Sue?

COMBINATION OF FACTORS?

A diver with over 20 years' experience diving in Singapore and overseas waters said that a combination of high tides, strong currents and poor visibility might have contributed to Mr Sue's disappearance.

'The visibility of the water off Pulau Hantu is about 3m and the currents there can be quite strong, even up to three hours after high tide.

'At about 11am to noon on Saturday, high tide was about 3m,' he said.

Around noon, after discovering that one of the divers was missing, the dive master told the divers to return to the boat and then asked for a back-up boat to join them at the scene.

He also asked that Police Coast Guard (PCG) be informed, said the diver.

Police told The New Paper yesterday that they were informed at about 1.30pm and a search was conducted by the PCG boats when they arrived at the scene.

The divers also helped in the search.

Said the diver: 'We circled around the dive site to see if we could detect any bubbles on the surface or debris that could help locate the missing diver but we were unsuccessful.'

They returned to Singapore at 5pm that day, said the diver.

At Mr Sue's flat in Chua Chu Kang, the family was too distraught to speak but a relative, who declined to be named, said that the missing man was an outgoing person who loved the outdoors and diving.

He said Mr Sue had just completed full-time National Service and had not yet found a job.

'This is a sad day for us. We have not heard anything so far, since the news of his disappearance,' he said yesterday.

Similans Trip Report - by Dorothy

noreply@blogger.com (dragondiver) — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 20:01:00 +0000

Photos Courtesy of Dorothy...

A Picture Before Our Last Dive At Boon Sung Wreck...

Our Dive Group(from Left): Me, Dorothy, Meilin,
Josephine,Yixiu and our Dive guide Chris(center, squating)

Below is the account of Dorothy's experience at the Similans:

"Hey hey!!

I am BACK from diving the Similan Islands, and it was a fantastic trip....diving-wise. Anyone intending to have a good experience on an LOB should do the White Manta - great service, fantastic crew, reliable dive guides, comfy lodging and space, and really delicious food. We were really blessed to be assigned to this Brit chap called Chris, who spent a lot of time during breaks drawing out entire dive sites before any briefing, with rocks/bommies/reefs etc. in diff colours; and whom also more than once commented he liked diving with our little group...until he started losing us underwater, and vice versa. (*snigger*) Alright, before I ramble further about nothing much, here's my dive report:

1) Anita's Reef
I woke up to light filtering into the cabin and was greeted by a view of sun beginning to rise behind some rocks, clear blue waters you could see through to the bottom with and a zest for some great diving. Indeed, the visibility was about 20m and it felt like I was in an aquarium rather then open water. I was immediately greeted by a large pufferfish hovering on the white sandy bottom on descent, and soon after, began stalking clown trigger, oriental sweetlip, and came by a bevy of brown sweetlip and blue tangs clamouring for breakfast on some corals. Schools of blue trevally, yellow tail barracudas and snappers greeted us along the way, and there were varieties of butterfly fish I'd never met. We saw some blue trevally having mouth washes by cleaner wrasses, and hovered a bit on the sand to spot garden eels (I didn't see any but the others did). The highlight was spotting a Mimic Octopus in the sand. It frolicked away from us to try to camouflage itself next to some rock and coral. I just kneeled in the sand and fired away at my camera, and the amazing thing was, another similar octopus just appeared next to it, before moving off, leaving octo no.1 still struggling to blend with its surroundings. The dive ended at a huge boulder (think it's called Hin Muang Tao) characterised by a spot of bright red coral housing a family of Clark's Anemone Fish.

2) East of Eden
Another reef with great visibility, but as I was feeling a little unwell, I got a little bored and uncomfortable during this dive, despite the once again, numerous schools of fusiliers, butterflyfish and snappers. Emma saved the dive - "Emma" the free gliding giant moray, resident at this site. We spotted here just before ascending, sliding under some table coral.

3) Elephant Head Rock
An attempt to seek out leopard sharks proved null again here, with much declined visibility. The host of butterflyfishes and angelfish here was aplenty, and huge in size as we swam among the rocks. Some spotted a huge barracuda here, which I didn't, but I did encounter a lobster, a dead one. (no fresh sashimi here)

4) Turtle Rock
After a miraculous recovery, signalled by finally being able to eat, we beheld a beautiful sunset as we waited for our night dive. A friendly hawksbill turtle swam by to say hi as we prepared for the brief. This dive, we hovered mostly on the gentle gradient of the bottom, shining our torches into corals and rocks for shrimps, crabs, etc. Another octopus showed up, and lionfish as well. There was quite a lot to spot, and we lost our dive guide for the first time in the darkness. He showed up later on and guided us in the general direction of the boat, before losing us again. Thank God for the blinking flash the instructor hung beneath the boat. We eventually found our way back.

5) Breakfast Bend/ Snapper Alley
Rise and shine and here I was in a dive that took my breath away....literally. It was a really beautiful site with good vis, schools of all kinds of reef fish, and so much to see. Nudibranchs are a rare sight in the Similans, and getting great shots (IMO) of a pretty Chromodoris kunei (or is geminina?) really made my day. We spotted a HUGE barracuda having a mouthwash (as usual I finned fwd to attempt taking photos...much to the "horror" of my buddy), and even with 30bar of air left, I still wanted to stay and observe a red spotted snapper, having breakfast among a swirling school of glass fish (or some kind of small fish). Pretty pretty dive....I was so reluctant to ascend.

6) Christmas Point
Our last site at the Similans and still no leopard shark! This was the last chance. After some odd currents and thermoclines, we nearly lost Chris again, until we heard him clicking frantically for us. There it was, the leopard shark, lying on the sandy bottom behind a rock. We simply kneeled on the sand near it and fired with our cameras, and it didn't budge a bit. I shifted to take closer shots from the front as well...still it didn't move. Only the expansion of it gills and slight opening of the mouth showed signs of life in the 1.5m wonder. The ascent from this site was wrought with more chilly thermoclines and currents. I was pointed to a giant grouper just before making my way upwards. Nothing really mattered...the leopard shark was on the top of our minds, and the first thing we screamed at the people on the boat when we hit zero metres.

7) Koh Bon
A long sunny boat ride brought us to Koh Bon, and I was contemplating taking a nap as the boat docked near the island. Absently, I decided to walk towards the bow of the boat for some wind, and as I got there, the crew suddenly dashed out from their room and gestured to me. I looked and there it was, a manta ray flapping near the surface some metres away. We excitedly shouted "Manta!" and aroused all the napping divers into action. It made it rounds, occassionally breaching and making us cry in wonder. One of the instructors quickly donned fins and snorkel and paddled out in chase.

We had 3 dives planned here. On our first dive, we barely spotted 2 mantas cruising overhead in the first 10min, before totally losing Chris. As our surroundings was neither rock nor reef, the five of us were totally lost, and ascended to our record shortest dive, lasting 20min. Chris came back with report of making it to the reef as planned, and seeing 4 mantas surrounding them. My heart cringed at having missed all that. Dive 2 was a sunset dive, and this time, we were determined to stick close to Chris. The site got darker and darker, but not before we spotted lionfish, another octopus, a very fierce moray and a banded sea krait (we later found to be named "Hector" - another resident). In the last rays of light, I spotted the manta cruising by once again, before being hit by a bout of strong current, sending me and another diver clinging onto the rocks for dear life. We only let go as the rest of the group came drifting by with the current as well. Dive 3 showed us a different side of the same site in daylight. I spotted an octopus and a huge school of yellow snapper before finding myself hanging on to rocks again, waiting for mantas to pass by. They did not disappoint. We spotted 3 flying by and one more overhead. As we made our way along the long ridge, I couldn't help noticing an entire highway of yellow snapper. Fish life was aplenty as well, and I spotted 3 blue puffers swimming together...so cute! Chris spotted a black tip shark, which we all missed. (vis at sites where mantas roam are typically not so good)

8) Boon Sung Wreck
Our final dive was in 3-5m visibility, with so much particles and silt in the site we....(you guessed it)....lost Chris within 15min into the dive. However, all 5 of us stuck together once again, and explored the piece of wreck we found ourselves at. We found a family of Durban hinge-beak shrimps, bumped into a school of white trumpetfish (never seen them in a school before), honeycomb moray, stonefish and many lionfish. The schools of smallfish here was numerous, and the many puffers were all XL sized. Currents were pushing us around, and we held on to a guiding line to ascend. I was almost swept away when I got distracted by a cute purplish jellyfish tumbling about next to me.

The diving was wonderful, and nearly made up for the frustration that came later on, when we found out the dive instructor we booked the trip with hadn't arranged our Phuket accomodation for the night yet. Unwise and risky move on his part, but thankfully, we eventually found rooms for the night and made our way back home safe and sound. The Lord's hand of protection is always upon us, and indeed He created all things for us to enjoy. I've got a new hobby and it's called video editing. Haha! Wish I'd discovered the software in my laptop earlier. Have attached my Manta video for your viewing pleasure.(Also did up my Bali one into a 3min plus show, but it's 28plus mb large so will have to upload somewhere)Photos will be uploaded soon, after I've edited them.=) --

Happy moments, PRAISE GOD.
Difficult moments, SEEK GOD.
Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD.
Painful moments, TRUST GOD.
Every moment, THANK GOD.

Bubblingly yours,
Dorothy
"
View Dorothy's Similans Trip Photos at her Kodak Gallery
Meilin's Photos can be found on her Flickr account

My photos...erm...are still in the midst of being processed...uploaded a few already and loads more to come... u can view them in myphotoalbum gallery following the link here.

Celebrate 3 years of Local Diving with the Hantu Bloggers

noreply@blogger.com (dragondiver) — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 04:07:00 +0000

The Hantu Blog celebrates its third birthday! To commemorate three years of great diving, we'll be doing 4 dives for our next trip, which includes a night dive. As such, you'll require at least Advanced Open Water Certification (or its equivalent). The anniversary dive is as scheduled:

Sunday, 25 March, 2007

For reservations and enquiries, email Debby Ng at hantublog@gmail.com
RSVP with the following:
1. Your name,
2. IC/Passport number,
3. Your email address,
4. Your handphone number, and
5. Any rental equipment required incl number of weights.

The itinerary is as mentioned below.

Let's see what's waiting for us out there this time!

Warm regards,

The Hantu Blog Team

=====
Hantu Blog Dive Itinerary

Cost: S$95.00 (excl gear rental)
Venue: Keppel Marina, Bt. Chermin Rd
Time (Departure): 0900 hrs
[Dive 1]
1st Surface Interval + Lunch
[Dive 2]
2nd Surface Interval
[Dive 3]
3rd Surface Interval + Dinner
[Night Dive]
Departure
ETA: 2100 hrs

Please also bring your own lunch, dinner, water and torches for the
trip.

Your passport or NRIC will be required in the event of coastguard checks.

* Cancellation fee $70.00

=====
Gear Rental Rates

Regulator $5.00
BCD $5.00
Mask $5.00
Fins $5.00
Wetsuit $6.00
Weight belt $0.50
Additional weights @ $0.50

All rental equipment is arranged by Solution Scuba.

Find out more about diving Singapore's very own backyard on the Hantu Blog. Or look in here to find out what you can expect to see on our local reefs.

Diving Similan Islands & Koh Bon Liveaboard MV White Manta

noreply@blogger.com (dragondiver) — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 05:02:00 +0000

5 days away from work for a good time of pure relaxation in Phuket and diving the Similans was absolutely fabulous. The plan to dive Hin Daeng/ Hin Muang was changed due to rumours of bad visibility and choppy waters at the famous pinnacles off Koh Lanta. Further up north in the Similans and Koh Bon, conditions were however perfect! Sunny weather, calm seas, excellent visibility and overwhelming sightings of Manta Rays were reported at Koh Bon.

LOB MV White Manta Photo: http://www.WhiteManta.com

There were a total of 21 divers from Singapore. It was to be a fun-filled 3 days on board MV White Manta. The companionship of a bunch of great new friends, good food, excellent diving and the comfort of living on board the luxurious vessel, pretty summarises an unforgettable holiday.

From left: Yi Xiu, Ellyn, Meilin, Dorothy and Josephine against the backdrop of sunset at Koh Bon

Most divers onboard were very proficient and experienced. I was privileged to be enjoying bottom time with these water-confident people. With keen eagle eyes, we were able to see and shared lots of exciting wonders of the blue together. From beautiful tiny macro like shrimps, crabs and nudibranchs to large majestic pelagics like the Manta Rays, Leopard Sharks and Great Barracudas. The proliferation and good mix of both big and small stuffs made the Similans a place highly recommended to dive over and over again. The magical experience with the gracefully flying Manta rays at Koh Bon was definitely the most memorable. The island was full of them gliding peacefully through the water, coming close to divers and leaving most of us in a jaw-dropping awe. For a moment, I thought I was in Sangalaki, the capital of Manta rays. They sort of welcomed us when we first arrived, frolicking and breaking the surface with their huge dorsal fins.

We did a total of 10 dives; with 6 in the Similans; 3 at Koh Bon and the last one at Boonsung wreck near Khao Lak. All dives were amazing and varied. The full fledging season of the Andaman Sea will definitely guarantee you a dive time of your life!

Stay tuned for the Similans Trip Report....

North Sulawesi, Lembeh Strait - Part 4 : Macro Magic of the Muck Heaven

noreply@blogger.com (dragondiver) — Sun, 24 Dec 2006 05:27:00 +0000

Manado Dive Travel - 11 to 15 November 2006

Partie Quatre de Six

Jour Trois : Monday, 13 November 2006

To the Muck Diving Capital of the World - Lembeh Strait

Introduction to the Fine Art of Muck Diving
As its term suggests, muck diving is all about groveling in muddy environment and generally the sites don't look attractive. It is altogether a different experience from the colours of the reef and deep blue diving. Yet, muck diving is all the rage worldwide today!

Muck diving is about slowing down and taking a closer look at the marine environment and appreciating it in a new way. There are several kinds of muck habitats. Generally, they are sandy and silty bottoms, mangrove swamps, seagrass patches, under jetties and piers and wreck bottoms. Muck diving certainly offers a great variety as each habitat has its own unique terrain, substrate and interesting array of critters and species.

Most creatures residing in the domain of muck sites are skilled masters at camouflage. They are either very small or have fascinating coloured hides to conceal themselves by having similar facades of textures and colours with their background environment. Some have the ability to burrow into sand while others possess venomous spines as defensive mechanism. The most interesting of all are those that can change their body textures and colours at will as they move around their habitat or mimic other creatures to escape predation. All these rare and bizarre-looking marine creatures are all that's driving muck lovers into an addictive craze and getting hooked on diving the muck waters!

Appreciating the art of muck environment requires perfect bouyancy and a keen eye. It is a conducive environment to fine tune your bouyancy skills. With practice and in due time, you'll enjoy and rejoice at your mastery in bouyancy control hovering just above silty bottoms without stirring a speck!

Muck diving is generally done at lower depths where the variety of species can already be found. This means prolonged bottom time for more productive encounters. I am more inclined towards muck diving due to the limitless photographic opportunities at macro. I just love macro more than wide angle as indicated by my preference of muck to deep blue diving. A good mix of both types is great but generally I find muck diving more enjoyable due to the following reasons (from my experience):
1. Muck statistically proved more encounters than deep blue diving;

2. Critters moved much slower and most of them stayed stationary even at close encounters, so there's ample time to appreciate and take the perfect shots of them;

3. Longer bottom time: because you don't exert too much energy chasing big pelagics and fighting currents here. You go slow and shallow, conserving your air and shorten your Residual Nitrogen Time such that the risk of Decompression sickness is comparatively lower and your surface interval will be shorter of course;

4. You can encounter the strangest and rarest of creatures here as well as their uncommon behaviour of mating, laying of eggs, hunting and fighting;

5. Although the muck environment is not as colourful as coral reef diving, the marine critters certainly offers a more colour variations than those dull silver, blue and black pelagics of the deep. Of course, it's nice to feed your excitement once in a while to encounter huge tornadoes of Barracudas and Jacks, schooling Hammerheads, majestic Whalesharks, gracefully flying Mantas and bizarre looking Mola Molas. But be informed that these are the rarest of encounters in the deep blue and unless you know where and when they specificially hang out (e.g Layang Layang for Hammerheads, Sangalaki for Mantas and Bali for Mola Molas), I would not recomend you to waste precious bottom time out in an unknown site searching aimlessly for these elusive pelagics. Chances of encounters based on my experience in blue diving is virtually very low and even if I see them, they are only faint blue figures in a distance that disappear almost as instantly as I spotted them (like my Hammerhead encounter in Sipadan).

Too early to RISE, very eager to SHINE

Below: The Sun already unleashed its rays upon Mt Lokon at 5 am Manado Time!

It was to be another full day of fun for us. Despite retiring on the basis of a tired day the previous night, we were required to wake up as early as 6 am in the morning! Anyway the excitement of diving the muck capital of the world got me jerking out of bed at 5 am already.... Michelle and Alex was still sleeping like dead log, so I went out for a quick puff and snapped a few shots of the Sunrise in Manado Bay. It was not what I'd expected it to be... The Sun was already up and was eagerly discharging its rays upon the lands of North Sulawesi. The magnitude of brightness at 5 am sure looked like 9 am here in Singapore... I wondered how early does the sun rise... maybe 4am?

We had breakfast at 7 am and were off by 7.30 am on a 1.5 hours journey to Bitung, the capital town of Lembeh. The traffic was a pain to endure. The roads were narrow, there were lots of vehicles recklessly whooping in and out of lanes and the town of Manado was already bustling with life as early 8 am. We reached Bitung on scheduled time at about 9 am. The town of Bitung seemed quieter but the infrastracture is better developed, with wider roads, orderly marked lanes, traffic lights and better architectures of buildings. Our transport pulled over at a busy fishing port along Lembeh Strait.

Bitung is a large harbour docked with lots of fishing boats. A large smelly fish factory is situated outside the town. There were lots of unsightly rubbish floating in the waters around the port. On the eastern side of the tip of North-Sulawesi, the Lembeh Strait (Selat Lembeh) runs between the Sulawesi mainland and Lembeh island to the east and is about 16 km long and 2 km wide. The strait is constantly flushed by cold upwellings from the deep with nutrient rich waters feeding the thousands of bizarre creatures inhabiting the sites. There are some interesting white limestone walls and a few smaller islands or rocks (Batu Sandar, Sarena Kecil, Kai-nah) in the middle of the strait and a lava flow visible around Batu Angus. Lembeh island is also an interesting place with some wilderness where the Tarsius monkeys, large monitor lizards, birds and land turtles live.

We boarded our boat and head out for the first chosen divesite of the day.

Left: The busy fishing port of Bitung; Right: The fish factory

The islands and limestone rocks of Batu Sandar, Sarena Kecil, Kai-nah in the middle of Lembeh Strait

Michelle acting cute.... Alex doing a good service...

In Search of the Lengendary Rhinopias
We were brought to this site to find a highly sought after subject by photographers and divers alike: The Rhinopias. Noldi mentioned he had seen this creature lurking in a Sunken drum at this site. The Rhinopias, also known as the Lacy Scorpionfish is a beautifully ugly fish with intricate lacy spotted hues of purple-blue, bright yellow, pink or green. This creature is an ambush predator and seldom move far from its surroundings. They don't swim but rather walk across substrate to get around... They sometimes can be found at a particular spot for months.

Aer Perang has a very nice black volcanic sand beach with gentle slopes. We did a shore entry and descended gradually to find our prized fish. The bottom was generally black volcanic sand/silt littered with rubbish. Not much variety of coral life as expected from this muck divesite. There was a huge patch of coral garden though. It was like an underwater plot of flower bed.

Dive Site: Aer Perang
Location: Lembeh Strait
Visibilty: 5 m
Temperature: 27°C
Maximum Depth: 23.2 m

Initially, there was no special encounters. There were only rubbish and sand everywhere. Only a few trumpetfish and plenty of lionfish. We were admiring the patch of flower bed and sponge patch when we chanced upon an ugly thing.

This guy was lying in wait of passing prey among sponges(above left). It was confident of its disguise and camouflage and stay motionless even with me at close quarters. It was looking at me all the while, spying on each and every movement that I made. I took a few photographs, it did not budge. I decided to give it a gentle nudge and it jumped right out of the sponges high up into the water column(gaving me a fright!) before settling down among the Warrior corals(Goniopora sp.). I never expect that frogfish can literally jump up so high into the water! I merely thought they can only hop along the seabed. Now I know they are called frogfish for a good reason. These fishes do not merely look like sponges, they felt like sponges too! Soft, spongy and irregularly shaped. Their pectoral fins are modified into webbed frog-like feet with tiny claws for hopping and moving around. Those pairs of modified "feet" are often the ones which gave their disguise away.

Commerson's Giant Frogfish (Antennarius commersonii)

Frogfish are also known as Anglerfish. They are exquisitely camouflaged ambush predators. Rather static, not only they perfectly mimic in color and general shape of their chosen perch, they also sport growths, lines, warts and colour patterns which completely disrupt their already lumpish body. This colouration of the Giant Frogfish is highly variable, they changes their body colour and pattern from time to time to match their surroundings. As its name suggests, this species is the largest known worldwide which can grow to a maximum length of 50 cm.

Undescribed Nembrothid (Nembrotha sp.4??)

This tiny individual, believed to be a juvenile was only about 10 mm. It is distinctly recognised as a Nembrothid, of family Polyceridae. The subfamily of Nembrothinae consists of the species of Nembrotha, Tambja and Roboastra. This specimen, which I photographed has had an orange dorsal patch between its rhinophores and gills against a baby blue colouration. It is also marked by thick black longitudinal lines. There has been no exact colour record of the nudibranch featured above. It could be a colour variation of Nembrotha sp.4 as per described in Australian Museum Online's Seaslug Forum. That one being the closest match I could find reference to. Another speculation is that this is a juvenile of the Nembrotha kurbayana as there was some records of subadults still retaining the bluish colouration at the rhinophores shealth and branchial plume pockets. Update me if you can give me an ID to this beautiful jewel of the sea.

Dwarf Sole (Parachirus xenicus)

All Soles and Flounders start life as like any other fishes, swimming upright, with eyes on both sides and patterned symmetrically. As their life cycle progress into adulthood, they undergo a drastic and strange transformation. Their eyes will move to one side of the body and they will lie flat with their both their eyes facing upwards. Soles will lie on their left sides with their eyes on the right sides of their body while flounders are the direct opposites. This is one way to differentiate soles from flounders. The side of the body with eyes are usually patterned with the ability to change colours to blend into their habitats(usually sandy bottoms). The other side of the body(lying flat against the sand) is usually white and pale. The Dwarf Sole pictured above is a small species about 50 mm long.

Yellow Boxfish (Ostracion cubicus)

This Yellow Boxfish is a tiny cute juvenile of about only 2 cm. Notice its black spots are about the size of its eyes. I was chasing this puny guy for a good 5 mins just to photograph it. It was so small that it kept zipping through holes and pipes, hiding among corals and in crevices. A tough little guy to capture on camera.

Ribbon Eels (Rhinomuraena quaesita)

Ribbon Eels start life as males and gradually change sex to females as they mature. Their sex and maturity are indicated by the change in their colouration. Juvenile male eels are jet black with yellow dorsal fin and as they matured into adult males, they transformed into beautiful electric blue with yellow snout and dorsal fin(above right). When a sex change occurs, the electric blue male becomes an all yellow female(above left). The yellow females are less commonly observed as compared to the black juveniles and blue adult males. They can be observed at low depths, usually in mixed sand and rubble areas well lit by sunlight. All 3 colour phases of the Ribbon eels have the same characteristics of eractic gaping mouths continously and twitching their body in a disorganised, spasm-like movement. They are aptly named as their body is thin, long and ribbon-like. Their most distinguishable feature from other members of the moray eels are their elaborate nostril flaps which are enormously expanded, forming a scoop-like structure.

We found the old rusty oil drum but our legendary fish was not found anywhere. We scoured the vicinity carefully for quite a while but just can't find it. It was strange.... Rhinopias hardly move around and they only inch a few metres in weeks or months. They generally stay stationary for a long time even when disturbed. Our speculation was that it was either captured or dead by predation. This fish has become a scarce find in North Sulawesi in recent years.... Once found, it is a prized trophy.... Better luck next time I guessed...

The Magical Wonders and the Electrifying Awe of Muck Macro!
Nudi Retreat is a wonderful site full of colours and surprises! It is a site where you can do a combination of Muck and Reef exploration. Although this is relatively a small site, the encounters are virtually limitless. It is a small protected cove with lots of beautiful soft and hard corals growing below the watermark under the cliff face. Extending out to the strait is the usual nice sandy black volcanic muck.

We started the dive further out of the protected cove and straight into muck diving. Creatures abound boldly in the open sands, confident of their camouflage or flashed vivid bright warning colours of toxicity to discourage would be predators. The cliff at this site extends underwater to a depth of about 25m vertically, giving us an opportunity at a mini wall dive. Seafans, sponges and other soft corals bloomed among the walls, showcasing myriad of amazing creatures, resulting in colours extraordinaire.

Dive Site: Nudi Retreat
Location: Lembeh Strait
Visibilty: 10 m
Temperature: 27°C
Maximum Depth: 25.2 m

Bargibant's Pygmy Seahorse (Hippocampus bargibanti)

The Pygmy Seahorse has a short snout, rounded knob-like coronet and irregular bulbous tubercles on the body. It has a rounded spine above each eye and on each cheek. Two colour morphs are recorded for this species, one is pale greyish-pink with pink or red tubercles, the second is yellow with orange tubercles. Both are found only on gorgonians (sea fans) of the genus Muricella, in depths of 16-40m. The Pygmy Seahorse grows to 2cm in length. It is remarkably well camouflaged. The colour of the Seahorse matches the gorgonian it inhabits, and the body tubercles look very similar to the polyps of the gorgonian. There are claims that the tubercules on the pygmies are actually live coral polyps growing on the skin.

Bargibant's Pygmy Seahorse (Hippocampus bargibanti)

We came across the Bargibant's pygmies on the Muricella gorgornian fans at a depth of about 22m along the vertical walls of this site. This is the common pink colour morph. There were about 2 of them on this seafan of about 1.5cm length and both were not very compliant with photo-taking. At this depth, there was constant current sweeping me and the seafan which makes it even harder to shoot digital stills of them. Muricella gorgornian have numerous closely knitted polyp tubercles on the extensive tight network of branches, giving the pygmies exceptional camouflage even to the keen eyes. This Pygmy Seahorse is a very shy species and will most certainly turn away from view when cameras approach. Imagine my frustration getting all the backsides and unfocussed shots...

Sea Moth (Eurypegasus draconis)

A very cryptic species perfectly camouflaged to match its sandy surroundings. They are usually seen in pairs meandering over the sandy bottom looking for tiny crustaceans and other benthic organisms to feed upon. Their body structures mimics pieces of broken shells and rubble. They looked like a combination of fish, platypus and seahorse(Eurypegasus: Pegasus was the winged horse of Greek mythology). When frightened, they will flare their broad pectoral wing-like fins and meander off very fast, in a synchronised zig-zag fashion changing directions simultaneously.

Warty Frogfish (Antennarius maculatus)

Antennarius maculatus (Warty or Clown frogfish) is a very attractive frogfish with nice colours. The large retractable lure can be recognized easily and this frogfish is often seen luring. It is rather a small frogfish but within its range quite common and often seen by divers. Juveniles are frequently confused with Antennarius commerson and Antennarius pictus. Some juveniles of the Painted Frogfish (Antennarius pictus) spot similar colour morphs and are often confused with this species. Painted Frogfish lacks the distinctive warts that grow on the Antennarius maculatus.

This couple was perching on corals and sponges.... hopping away when I got too close.

Perfect camouflage: A piece of Sponge overgrown with algae, warts and hydroids...

This species of frogfish shows many colours and can slowly change from one colour to another until it matches the colour of the surrounding sponges or corals. Lightly pigmented spots, patches and scabs.

Clown Frogfish (Antennarius maculatus)

This particular white and red colour morph of the Warty Frogfish is also known as the Clown Frogfish. This little guy was sitting out in the open blantantly without any sponge cover where it usually conceals itself. It is bright white or yellow with reddish brown and bright orange triangular patterns. The skin is covered with warts and clearly visible pores which makes it look like a piece of sponge. The lure, attached at the front of its head just above its mouth, looks like a small fish.

Clown Frogfish (Antennarius maculatus)

Like all frogfish, it tends to stay in the same area for some time. It can be spotted in the same location for days. The Clown Frogfish will sometimes sit out in the open (like the one I photographed above) pretending to be a small piece of sponge growth. This specimen was about 10cm.

Juvenile Ribbon Eel (Rhinomuraena quaesita)

This is the juvenile black and yellow Ribbon Eel. All black juveniles are males. Upon attaining adulthood it will change its colour to electric blue and yellow. A sex change occurs when the blue males transforms into the rarely seen all yellow females.

Juvenile Ribbon Eel (Rhinomuraena quaesita)

Like many eels, the ribbon eel is sometimes thought to be angry or aggressive, because its mouth is often agape, appearing ready to strike. In reality, the eel is simply breathing. The ribbon eel buries itself in sand or hides in rocks or reefs, dashing out to feed on small fishes. The ribbon eel is known as one of the most sociable and peaceful of all moray eels, and does not bother humans or easily get irritated.

Demon Stinger (Inimicus sinensis)

Also called the Devil Scorpionfish, this demon can inflict horrendous wounds causing excruciating pain with their venomous spines. Its pectoral fins are modified with free finger-like rays, enabling it to walk across the sandy bottom and to use it to bury itself in the sand. It has a short tail that is held at a cramped angle to the lumpy, spiny body. A cluster of fringed, disarrayed and long dorsal spines rises from its back. When threatened, it will display menacingly, flaring the inside of its beautiful and stunningly coloured pectoral fins as a strong sign of warning. The different species of devilfishes (Inimicus didactylus, filamentosus, caledonicus and sinensis) are differentiated apart from the colour of their pectoral fins.

Strapweed Filefish (Pseudomonacanthus macrurus)

Also known as the Smallspotted Leatherjacket, it is a marbled brown filefish, highly variable in colour. Almost always visible scattered black spots and an obvious white blotch next to the pectoral fins. Short seaweed shaped skin flaps cover the whole body and the dorsal spine.

Banggai Cardinalfish (Pterapogon kauderni)

The Banggai Cardinalfish, also known as the Kaudern's Cardinal, or Longfin Cardinalfish, is beige and silver highlighted by black stripes and white spots on the body with long, elegant fins. As its name suggests, they are native to the Banggai islands in Central Eastern Sulawesi, Indonesia. There have been successful introduction of this unique species in recent years to other locations in the vicinity. They have invaded and are thriving well in Lembeh Strait, north of Banggai islands.

A Clown Anemonefish amidst a school of Banggai Cardinalfish

Banggai Cardinalfish is active during daylight hours, while many of its fellow Apogonidae are nocturnal. All male Cardinalfish species incubate their eggs in their mouths while the females guard their males aggressively. They release their youngs into the planktonic layer when they hatch. But the Banggai Cardinalfish is the only species of its kind to continue housing their fry in the male parents' mouth for another 10 days or so after they hatch. This dedicated parental care means their productivity level is much lower than other species of Cardinalfish. They are usually found in groups of around 2 to 20 individuals, sheltering among structures such as branching corals, sea urchin spines and seagrass stems. Some even associate with sea anemones. They hover just above the tentacles, but are able to make contact without harm, similar to the commensal relationship between a Clown Anemonefish and their Anemone hosts.

Peacock Mantis Shrimp (Odontodactylus scyllarus)

One of the most beautiful and interesting species of its kind, this powerful "smasher" can split a human finger open with a lightning-fast strike of its modified raptorial claws. It is a very active predator often hunting out in the open for crustaceans, molluscs and even fish, easily recognised by its aposematic bright colouration. Often difficult to photograph in the open as it scuffles for hiding in coral rubble or retreat to its typical U-shaped, 2 exits burrow. When cornered (like the one above), it will stand up and watch the photographer, sometimes rolling on its back and showing off its beautiful tail fan. This and other Mantis Shrimps must never be touched or get too close to, as they are quite capable of smashing through a camera lens housing with a force and speed of a .22 caliber bullet!!

Peacock Mantis Shrimp (Odontodactylus scyllarus)

An extraordinary species that looks like a combination of Shrimp and Praying Mantis with beautiful feathery colouration of a Peacock. A ravishing but deadly beauty.

Shireen's Phyllidiopsis (Phyllidiopsis shireenae)

A Nudibranch of the family, Phyllidiidae. They do not have branchial plumes on their dorsal surface. Phyllidiids hide their gills underneath their mantle skirt. Phyllidiopsis shireenae is distinctive, on account of its mid-dorsal crest (i.e., the body is not dorsoventrally flattened as in other phyllidiids). It is white(sometimes very pale pink coloration) with a few black lines, and salmon pink rhinophores. No other Phyllidiid possesses a large dorsal crest and salmon pink rhinophores.

Babai's Phyllidia (Phyllidia babai)

As described by Brunckhorst, 1993....
The 'Phyllidia ocellata colour group' is a particularly complex one having slugs with yellow-orange tubercles and/or dorsum with 'eye patches' surrounded in white and or black with a tubercle (usually yellow) in the middle. While P. ocellata displays some individual variation some other distinct species occur in the colour group. Phyllidia babai belongs to this group. It is distinguishable by its consistently white dorsum with fine yellow margin and narrow tubercles; it has the black 'eye patches' as other species in the group. There are other distinguishing features such as its white foot (dark gray in P. ocellata) and in internal morphology and morphology of penial spines. P. babai is known from the western pacific; it feeds on the yellow sponge, Acanthella stipata. This nudibranch was named in honour of a grand gentleman of Opisthobranch taxonomy and biology in Japan, Kikutaro Baba.

Morose Tambja (Tambja morosa)

This is a large species of Tambja growing to about 70mm long. It is usually black, dark blue or green with bright blue markings. Like all species of Tambja, it feeds on arborescent (plant-like) bryozoan colonies. This elongated species of Tambja are capable of 'swimming' (more of riding on currents) to quickly get mobile in search of food or escape predators. They swim by vigorous lateral movement of the body - simultaneously bending the head and tail to one side, then to the other. Not a very directed way of swimming but a good way to move away from somewhere quickly.

Red-Gilled Nembrotha (Nembrotha rutilans)

A typically coloured Nembrotha rutilans is with creamy-white body, large brown/maroon patches anterior and posterior to the gills, orange-red patch on the tail, purplish blue oral tentacles, long red rhinophores and very large red gills. The characteristic blue line along the edge of the foot appears faint gray in my specimen, however. This species typically displays a dramatic cobra or rattlesnake striking posture. It feeds on the slowest moving of benthic invertebrates, a sessile tunicate.

Loch's Chromodoris (Chromodoris lochi)

This is the blue complex with orange-yellow gills variation of the Chromodoris lochi. This rare colour form are easily confused with C. willani, C. dianae, C. annae and C. elisabethina. To distinguish C. lochi from the other 4 species Chromodorids, study carefully at the colouration and markings of its mantle, branchial plume and its rhinophores. C. lochi have either an all white or speckled blue(this case) mantle and foot. Its rhinophores and gills are within an unbroken black perimeter on the mantle. It also has a black median line which can be discontinous. It either is a blue mantle complex form which is always coupled with all orange-yellow rhinophores and gills, or, it will be an all white mantle form with white or pink rhinophores and gills. Both colour forms of the C. lochi always have a bright white mantle skirting edge.

Loch's Chromodoris (Chromodoris lochi)

This on the other hand is the more typical form of the Loch's Chromodoris. It has a feathery white branchial plume and pinkish rhinophores. The mantle skirt is all white without any orange or yellow marginal band. It feed on sponges.

Anna's Chromodoris (Chromodoris annae)

It has a blue or sometimes bluish white background, with fine black punctate notum. Black line alla around the mantle. It has distinctive brilliant orange rhinophores and gills. An orange band surrounds the mantle edge. This species can be differentiated from the similar looking C. elisabethina by not having a longitudinal black median line. C. annae has black punctation while C. elisabethina has black pitted marks against blue background.

Electric Flame Scallop (Lima scabra)

The Electric Flame Scallop is an extremely beautiful molluscs that has a bright red mantle with long, red and flowing tentacles. The species seems to create electricity which can be seen jolting across its mantle like lightning bolts. These electrical surges are bright enough to be seen by our naked eye. The shell of the Flame Scallops is covered with fine bumps, making it feel like a file. It likes to hide in rock crevices and caves with its shell embeded in the substrate. Capable of shooting strong jets of water out of its mantle while closing its shell to propel away from predators. It is a filter feeder that dines on phytoplanktons. Here is an interesting video that I captured to illustrate this strange electrical phenomenon which left me in awe!

Play it to be electrified!

2 Trumpetfishes cruised near the water surface with beautiful rays of sunburst illuminating the colours of the pristine reefs at Nudi Retreat.

We ended this dive at the small cove of Nudi Retreat, with amazing colours of the reef illuminated by the rays of sunburst shooting through the water surface - an exchanted experience!

The "Beach with a well" is a Site with full of wealth!
Pantai Perigi lies on Lembeh island just close to the huge white limestone formations. The name can be translated to "beach with a well". There's a private beach at this site, but we didn't explore the dry land site to see if there's really a well here. We started the dive on a gentle slope with light grey sand. Towards deeper waters, it's mostly muck with obsuring visibility. There were only ocassional patches of soft corals among the murky bottom. But almost under every rock, log, rubbish and corals, lurked critters of all sorts. There were some hard and soft coral colonnies in the upper area of the dive site.

This site is one of my best muck dive. There were countless bizzare but interesting animals all over this splendid location. I encountered so many animals on my wishlists and they are just so fascinating. I was so engrossed in taking pictures most of my time and lost my buddiess few times but we always managed to find one another everytime.

Top side pictures of Pentai Perigi with me posing next to Nodi...and Michelle

Dive Site: Pantai Perigi
Location: Lembeh Strait
Visibilty: 5 m
Temperature: 27°C
Maximum Depth: 20.7 m

Dwarf Lionfish (Dendrochyrus brachypterus)

As its name implies this species of lionfish is one of the smallest sized with individual growing to a maximum length of 15 cm. They are often found in small aggregations on coastal reefs especially on silty bottoms and among vegetation debris. They show variable colouration and when disturbed, it will readily flare its brightly coloured aposematic fan-like pectoral fins. Like all other Lionfish, this menacing and grumpy looking fish should never be touched by as they are capable of inflicting nasty pain with their venomous spines.

Papuan Scorpionfish (Scorpaenopsis papuensis)

A very cryptic bottom ambush predator. It is almost undistinguishable from the very similar S. oxycephala and S. possi. S. papuensis has forward pointing tentacles above the eyes which are absent in the other 2 similar species. It is usually found in coral and rocky areas to depths over 40 m and also in coastal sand slopes, estuaries and lagoons, often in algae covered rubble zones.

Long-horn Cowfish (Lactoria cornuta)

The cowfish belong to the Boxfish family of Ostraciidae. They are aptly named as they have rigid box-shaped body, made up of semi-fused but well defined hexagonal bony plates. A truly armoured box-like strong casing with holes through which emerge the eyes, the mouth, the gills, the fins and the caudal peduncle. Despite a seemingly lack of streamlined flexibility, they are fast and agile swimmers. This particular species of boxfish is called cowfish because it spot a pair of long sharp horns above the eyes and another shorther pair at the lower rear. It is usually solitary, often observed on sand and seagrass bottoms blowing water on sand to uncover the small benthic prey it feeds on.

Hairy Frogfish (Antennarius striatus)

Small little frogfish that is covered with developed hair-like dermal appendages as its name suggests. It is a peculiar species that can spot different colour variation, from brownish, yellowish, pinkish to whitish. The background blotches and stripes are always present though. Being an Anglerfish, it has a large, boomerang-shaped lure that looks like a fat worm. It is commonly observed on sandy or silty bottoms with rotting vegetation and sponges where it lies patiently camouflaged for an unsuspecting meal.

Cockatoo Flounder (Samaris cristatus)

Undoubtly, this flounder swam and hugged closely flat to the sandy seabed. Perfectly camouflaged by using its various shades of brown mottled on its ocular side. It will suddenly spread its greatly elongated white dorsal fin rays in front of its head when threatened. Watch the video above that demonstrate this behaviour.

Flying Gurnard (Dactyloptena orientalis)

Watch this clip and see how the Flying Gurnard takes flight. It opened up its colourfully vibrant wing-like pectoral fins to glide across the sandy bed. It is also capable of lightning fast short burst of speed to get away from danger.

Porcelain Crab (Neopetrolisthes maculatus)

I have described a very similar and almost identical species of the Porcelain crab previously. It also share the same characteristics and live on the same types of commensalistic anemone hosts. The N. maculatus can be distinguished from the preceding N. oshimai by its smaller and more numerous red spots on a white background.

Crinoid Squat Lobster (Allogalathea elegans)

A tick-like critter species of variable vibrant colours, always matching to its crinoid hosts. It has a flattened oval body with a long pointed rostum. Alone or more often in pairs living exclusively and having commensalistic relationship with its featherstar hosts. They are often found underneath the crinoids and can be observed by gently tickling (with a dive rod) the hosts' underside to make them open up. Never attempt to handle the crinoids with hands as the featherstars' arms are extremely fragile and they will break and stick to your skin.

Red-striped Cleaner Shrimp (Lysmatella prima)

Clearly identified by its bright yellow legs, the body is also yellowish, striped in bright red. This species does not seem to mind when closely approached and will often stay out in the open in true "cleaner" fashion. It is supremely confident in its bold colouration to ward off predators and advertises its cleaner services to would-be passing customers.

Commensal Shrimp (Periclemenes magnificus)

This particular species of cleaner commensal shrimp was described in an earlier post. This is a much clearer and close-up macro shot of it. The best part is it was impregnated with eggs visible through its transparent abdomen.

Blue Dragon (Pteraeolidia ianthina)

A solar powered nudibranch of variable colour, its cerata stores undigested and uncharged stinging nematocysts capable of painful stings if touched. It also culture zooxanthellae from its diet and stores them in its cerata. In the nudibranch's body, the zooxanthellae get protection and in turn provides the nudibranch with nutrients from photosynthesis. Young animals are white as they have yet to develop their crop of zooxanthellae. Adults often can go without feeding for sometime, possibly living off the nutrients provided by the zooxanthallae.

Mt Dua Saudara - an inactive volcano at the heart of Bitung

We finished the last dive at about 1530 hrs North Sulawesi time and began our hour long journey back to Barracuda resort. We were so tired that we slept throughout the journey. When we reached our resort, it was still too early for dinner so we showered and headed out to the Mega Mall in Manado town. Our poor driver can't really communicate in English yet he had to follow us around while we did our shopping. I think we bored him alot as we were taking our time forever to window shop....

We returned to the resort for dinner and coincidently, my OW instructor from Big Bubble Center, Singapore, arrived at the Barracuda with his students. What a timely meet in a foreign paradisa! It was bedtime after some catch up session with Stanley and we looked forward to more deep blue diving the next day...

To be continued...

North Sulawesi, Manado - Part 3 : Of Wreck, Walls, Pygmies and Mandarins

noreply@blogger.com (dragondiver) — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 15:58:00 +0000

Scenic view of Molas Beach on Manado Bay

Manado Dive Travel - 11 to 15 November 2006

Partie Trois de Six

Jour Deux : Sunday, 12 November 2006

Waking up to a full day of adventures...
Our dives were pre-planned before we started the day. We told Noldi what we wanted to see and discussed the dive plan with him. The 1st dive of the day was to be a deep dive at the only wreck around Manado Bay. Michelle was thrilled. She loved wreck diving. The convenient thing was that this wreck is just lying on the sandy bottom off Molas beach, just a short boat ride out from the jetty. We rented a dive computer from Noldi to gauge our limit underwater. It was the Uwatec Aladin. I shall review this dive computer at a later time... Alex was the one using the computer so we left him to guide us on the dive specific.

After breakfast, we head out to explore this World War 2 wreck. The weather was extremely good with the sun blazing its hot and furious rays upon us. It's time for a good tan that's long overdue for me!

Deep diving into the sunken remnants of WW2
This wreck is a steel hulled Dutch merchant ship that was sunk by torpedoes during WW2. It was very nicely covered with corals and the wreck goes down to 40m at the bottom with its bow being the shallowest at about 20m. We descended down to the stern of the ship at the bottom and did a multilevel to finish the wreck and the bow. We continued further across the open waters to reach the nearby reef.

Dive Site: Molas Wreck
Location: Manado Bay
Visibilty: 12 m
Temperature: 27°C
Maximum Depth: 39.3 m

The water was really cold at the bottom and we went beyond the recreational depth of 30m. That's where the big stuffs were. I was busy photographing macro and forgot to occassionally check out the open sea. There, I missed a big Napolean Wrasse that Noldi and Alex claimed to have seen. The wreck was badly damaged at the hull with several depressions believed to have been caused by the explosion of the attack. The other only "huge" stuff I saw was an over grown solitary trumpet fish.

Big stuffs like Michellea and Alexus were encountered at the wreck

Red-lined Flabellina (Flabellina rubrolineata)

This nudibranch is of suborder, Aeolidina and family is Flabellinidae. This animal is a colour variation of the original specimen as described by O'Donoghue, 1929. This is the lined form as shown in my photograph. In this species, the rhinophore club is papillated but there are papillae only on the posterior side of the rhinophores, as my photo nicely depicts. It feeds on hydroids.

Polycad Flatworm (Pseudobiceros sp.)

This flatworm is of the order, Polycadida and family is Pseudocerotidae. It is still an undescribed species. It has an undulating edge, bi-margined by black and yellow. It can be seen feeding on the ascidians in the photo.

En route to Bunaken Island

The majestic cone of Manado Tua

Left: Michelle and Alex displaying Uwatec's Aladin; Right: Alex, me and Manado Tua

We reached Bunaken island early and while waiting for our minimum Surface Interval of 1 hour, Alex and I jumped into the pristine clear waters of Lekuan for some free diving experience.

The reef was too shallow and Alex accidentally kicked some corals resulting in a bloodied foot.

The Great Walls of Bunaken!
Dive Site: Lekuan 2
Location: Bunaken Island
Visibilty: 20 m
Temperature: 26°C
Maximum Depth: 31.7 m

This is a site that plunges vertically down along its wall to some 60 metres. The visibility reaching more than 20 m. The coral life was abundant, varied and pristine. These were some of the most beautiful coral walls in the world, which in good sunlight through clear water made amazing living tapestries. There were varieties of hard and soft coral and bright pink and red coral fans on a reef supporting a large variety of reef fish. There were butterfly and batfish, puffers, Moorish idols, unicorn fish, bannerfish, wrasses, schooling mullets and Fusiliers of all colours. There were also morays and feathery crinoids of many different hues. The current here is considered moderate... we changed direction twice as the current changed unpredictably and it made a comfortable drift dive!

"Climbers" of the Wall....

Me, Alex( the Green Ass Monster) and Michelle

The walls of Bunaken were teeming with life. World renowned true blue diving!

A large shoal of pelagic fish schooling by.... filter feeding with their gaping mouths. A sight to behold!

Striped Catfish (Plotosus lineatus)

A marauding school of juveniles. Juveniles appear darker and their white stripes fade into a yellowish brown as they age. Their schooling size also decrease with age. The Plotosids are number one in the hurt department. Has got 3 sets of nasty stings and are extremely venomous. They look so beautiful and unassuming, but these cats are to be reckoned with. Their venom are bound to cause cardiac arrest and known to cause fatality in humans! The eel-tail, coral, stinging or Tandan catfishes, family Plotosidae ("ploh-toe-sih-dee") are aptly named ("plotos" means swimmers). Their tapered bodies with pointed or bluntly rounded tails are almost in constant undulating motion. One other interesting behaviour to mention: their sound production. These cats hum or buzz loud enough to be heard underwater. Listen closely (but not to close to be stung!)while holding your breath.

Soft Coral Crab (Hoplophrs oatesii)

A beautiful and very small commensal of Dendronepthya soft corals, which it mimics to perfection. Body is covered with spines, colour is depended on the polyps of the soft coral which it lives on. It feeds on the polyps of its host, thereby obtaining the exact same colour pigment which it cleverly camouflage itself.

Porcelain Crab (Neopetrolisthes oshimai)

Almost always in pairs, this species is easily recognised by its broad, paddle-like chelipeds. Only found in commensalistic association with several large anemones like Stichodactyla, Heteractis sp. and Cryptodendrum. This particular species can be distingushed from many other species of Porcelains by its bigger, less numerous red spots on a bright white background.

Clown Anemone Shrimp (Periclemenes brevicarpalis)

A very large and exceedingly beautiful species, usually living in pairs on carpet anemones. It can be immediately recognised by its exquiste livery: the transparent body is marked with several bright white spots, whole the bright white tail is decorated with five black and orange ocelli. Legs and chelipeds are transparent with blue-purple bands. The larger of the pair is always the female.

Bubble Coral Shrimp (Vir philippinensis)

As its name suggest, this species live exclusively on grape or bubble coral Pleurogyra sinuosa. The usually appear bodly in pairs. They make very photogenic and compliant subjects. Their body is transparent with thin purple lines on antennae, legs and chelipeds.

Crinoid Shrimp (Periclemenes cornutus)

Criniod shrimps of the genus Periclemenes are exclusively found in association with feather stars and filter-feeding echinoderms. The shrimp's colour usually matches with great accuracy to that of it's crinoid host.

Paying dues for a part in conservation

The Bunaken National Marine Park was formally established in 1991 and is among the first of Indonesia's growing system of marine parks. The park covers a total surface area of 89,065 hectares, 97% of which is overlain by sparkling clear, warm tropical water. The remaining 3% of the park is terrestrial, including the five islands of Bunaken, Manado Tua, Mantehage, Nain and Siladen. Although each of these islands has a special character, it is the aquatic ecosystem that attracts most naturalists.

The 2006 Bunaken entrance fees for foreign visitors are Rp 50,000 per daily ticket (approximately US$6) or Rp 150,000 (approximately US$17) for a waterproof plastic entrance tag valid for the full calendar year. Tags (or tickets) must be carried at all times the guest is within park boundaries and can easily be affixed to guests’ diving or snorkeling gear or on backpacks. The entrance fee system has been adapted from the well-known Bonaire Marine Park system and was successful in raising over $420,000 for conservation programs in Bunaken during the period from 2001- 2004.

Entrance tags and tickets can be purchased through marine tourism operators based in Manado and in the Bunaken National Park, or can be purchased from one of three ticket counters in Bunaken and Liang villages on Bunaken Island and on Siladen Island. Enforcement of the entrance fee system is conducted via spot checks by park rangers on land and at sea.

General information source: NSWA website

We spent our Surface Interval on Bunaken Island viewing the Exhibits at the Marine Park Information Centre and paying the park fees at the Park office. We bought the 2006 calendar year passes before we realised we should have taken the daily pass instead. Anyway, after paying our dues, we went to visit the information centre nearby to learn about what kinds of marine life the park has to offer. There were several hawkers by the beach in Liang village selling Minahasan handicrafts and t-shirts. I'm so tempted to do some shopping but we forgot to bring extra cash.

The Pygmies of Swallow's Cape
Dive Site: Tanjung Pisok
Location: Manado Bay
Visibilty: 20 m
Temperature: 25°C
Maximum Depth: 22.2 m

Tanjung Pisok means "Cape of the Swallows" in Minahasa tongue and in the late afternoon you can see these birds flying over the sea, trying to catch insects that come from the Mangroves close by. Diving at this site begins with a gentle slope and ends after that, either way, in a wall. During the Monsoon storms, waves hit Tanjung Pisok hard and that is clearly visible with what you'll see. The top layers are less abundant with Coral and Marine life. Deeper, however, there's plenty to see. Being on a "corner", current conditions can vary drastically, but it's also responsible for many unexpected encounters. During rainy times, visibility is heavily affected by outflushing from the river delta.

We were brought to this site to find something special. They are residents here and Noldi was very confident that they can be found. We were hit by the coldest of thermocline and accompanying the icy cold water was the constant current that would make a very nice drift dive. But due to me trying to photograph the tiniest of critters here, we refuse to drift with the current. It was a very tiring experience to fight the drift as well as to withstand the cold while looking for these small chaps.... The experience was well worth!

The Weedy Pygmy Seahorse (Hippocampus pontohi)

This species was first discovered by a local Indonesian guide named Hence Pontoh only recently in 2003. This seahorse was officially described and named Hippocampus pontohi, after him.

What really is surprising, observing this pygmy seahorse, is its great diversity compared to other species of pygmy seahorses living in North Sulawesi's waters, like Hippocampus bargibanti and Hippocampus denise. These are its main morphological characteristics:

It is very small. The 2 specimens I've came across on this same patch of hyroids had a size of about 8mm to 1 cm only!!
Body is flat and thin: from a front view he's almost invisible;
It's red-orange on his back, with a nearly white belly. Snout is pale pink, while the tail is brown-yellow with red weedy veins;
This species has two typical red spines, with branches, on his back, similar to small wings and one on its high coronet. For this reason it has been named the 'Weedy' Pygmy Seahorse.
Has a prehensile tail that enables it to "hop" from one hydroid branch to another.
It is a very active and mobile species by day.
Has several colour variations, from complete white to yellow or brown, often with red markings.

Habitat:
Unlike its better known 'cousins' H. bargibanti and H. denise, it prefers to live at shallow depths: all of the photographed specimens were at about 10 meters, on a big coral head among the sandy slopes at the Cape.

As expected, it is associated with the hydroid Sertularella sp., which grows on short coral branches between small sponges and ascidian colonies. My photos can better describe this habitat, where this seahorse hides and camouflages.

Tanjung Pisok's slopes are swept by wild currents and for this reason this species prefers small recesses or hydroid colonies sheltered by big sponges or other organisms which can offer some kind of protection.

Behaviour:
Very little is known about this species. My impression is that it is very active and mobile: Both specimens seemingly never stop moving, always jumping and swimming from one hydroid to another. Taking a good photo is extremely difficult.

The Black Beauty (Hippocampus sp.)

This lone specimen was found separately on another coral head also among hyroids, ascidians and tunicates. It has a distinct orange mane, jet black body and is speckled with small white dots(especially through the length of its prehensile tail). This pygmy is even smaller than the 2 yellow-white specimens of Hippocampus pontohi. It is only about 5mm! It was beyond the focussing power of my camera's super macro mode...... This species is still undescribed by scientists.

Decorated Flabellina (Flabellina bilas)

Has a pair of paddle-shaped or spatulate oral tentacles. It was a remarkable sight to see the animal paddling with its oral tentacles against the substrate as it crawled along. It feeds on hydroids and stores undigested stinging nematocysts in its cerata for protection.

Anna's Chromodoris (Chromodoris annae)

This is another of the Chromodoris quadricolor colour group of species characterised by black longitudinal lines, bluish backgrounds and orange borders. Chromodoris annae is characterised by the dark specks in the blue areas known as the punctate notum.

Reticulated Chromodoris (Chromodoris tinctoria)

Bohol Discodoris (Discodoris boholiensis)

This species is characterised by the narrow visceral hump, (which forms a narrow median ridge from the rhinophores to the gills), and wide mantle skirt, often autotomised(dropping off part of the mantle skirt as a form of defence) when disturbed. It is named after Bohol Island, in the Philippines, where it was first found. It can grow quite large like this specimen of about 20cm in diameter. These dorids are usually hidden during the day. It is photokinetic - that is they move quite fast when they are in the light, and stop or slow down considerably when they are in the dark. This helps to get them to a dark place, which ususally means a shaded overhang or crevice where they can hide. The mantle of Discodoris boholiensis is very thin and flexible, which allows it to curl up into some very weird shapes so that it can nestle into crevices in rocks and coral colonies away from potential predators.

Clown Anemone Shrimp (Periclemenes brevicarpalis)

Ghost Shrimp (Pliopontonia furtiva)

A commensal shrimp on corallimorpharians, Discosoma sp. and Rhodactis sp. . It is a queer, slow moving and spider-like shrimp, with a transparent body marked by white bands and spotted with yellow and white. The only species in its genus and living in association with the disc anemones. They like to hide in the slit-like opening or under the rim of the disc anemones.

Day Octopus (Octopus cyanea)

It is quite active and bold during daytime. A master of disguise, it can instantaneously change its body colour and even its texture to fit in its surrounding. This octopus sat boldly in the sand, confident that it looked like a piece of rock encrusted with corals. I approached too close and my sudden movement spooked it such that, it changed to a smooth body of brown before it scuffled into a crevice having its cover blown.....

Yellow Boxfish (Ostracion cubicus)

The Yellow Boxfish can be recognised by its box-shaped body, bright yellow colouration and black spots. Juveniles have black spots about the size of the pupil. As the fish grows, the spots become smaller and brownish, sometimes even changing to white spots with a black margin. This species grows to 45 cm in length. The Yellow Boxfish inhabits coral and rocky reefs. Larval fish generally settle on sheltered rocky and coral reefs. Adult Yellow Boxfish are often solitary and occur on deeper coastal slopes, lagoons and areas where there are crevices and ledges for shelter.

The Harem of the Erotic Mandarins
Dive Site: Barracuda House Reef
Location: Manado Bay
Visibilty: 20 m
Temperature: 25°C
Maximum Depth: 22.2 m

Picturesque Sunset at Dusk...

One of the most interesting but elusive fish on the reef is Synchiropus splendidus commonly known as the Mandarin Fish. They have intrigued many Marine Photographers because of their striking beauty while frustrating us because of the difficulty in capturing good images. This fish, a member of the family Callionymidae (dragonets), is a highly sought after photographic subject due to its exceptional coloration and interesting habits. It is an extremely small and shy fish. Any slight movement or heavy breathing will spook them and have them zipping back into the crannies and nooks.

Mandarin Fish (Synchiropus splendidus)

This rarely seen fish occurs on fringing reefs around continental islands and adjacent offshore barrier reefs in both the Indian Ocean and Pacific waters. It lives in sheltered lagoons and generally occurs in groups. Mandarin fish inhabit broken coral bottoms and hence operate mostly under cover. They move in jerky movements pausing occasionally in open spaces but rarely for very long. They ingest small copepods for which they are constantly hunting. The male is larger than the female and has a spiked dorsal fin which will erect when another male is encountered.

Male Mandarin Fish displaying its erected spiked dorsal fin when another male is encountered

Female Mandarin Fish, as females in other species, get along, whereas males do not. When males encounter each other they "display" by raising their spiked dorsal fin, hoping to frighten off the other male; but if neither backs off they fight, sometimes to the death. Encounters that result in fights occur more often just prior to the daily mating ritual at dusk. Mandarin fish have a complex social structure and mating system.

The dragonets congregate around the coral rubble at dusk to commence their daily sex ritual

Daily, at dusk (exactly at dusk!), for about 10 minutes Mandarin Fish mate. During this mating period, Mandarins are almost, but not quite oblivious to what is going on around them. As long as one exercises reasonable discretion about movement and use of lights, close approach is not difficult. Groups of Mandarins gather together and a male and female pair off, rising into the water column together until the magic moment occurs when the female releases eggs and the male fertilizes them. It seemed that the larger males are more successful than the smaller males in capturing the interest of a female. I guess for Mandarins that "size does matter". I read that smaller males have developed a compensating technique of rushing up to mating pairs and releasing sperm hoping for a random fertilization to occur. During mating, Mandarin fish are more vulnerable to predators as they rise into the water column.

Rising up the water column in a passionate embrace

At the magic moment, the male and female quickly releases their embrace leaving the eggs in the water column for dispersion. From beginning their embrace until egg release takes anywhere from 5 to 8 seconds. The unique mating ritual of the Mandarins is definitely a must-watch for any marine enthusiast!

Sex marathon... The females wait for their turns.... What a lucky male!

Final stages of Courtship

The males and females engaged in erotic endearment!

This Mandarin Special is definitely one of my most memorable and best dusk-night dive ever!

Saddle-back Toby (Canthigaster valentini)

The Saddle Valentini Puffer, also known as the Black Saddle Pufferfish, Blacksaddled Toby, Valentini Toby, or Saddled-back Toby. Members of the Canthigaster genus are called Sharp-nosed Puffers or Tobies. The Saddle Valentini Puffer is a bright and colorful fish with dark brown bands across the midsection, brownish-orange spotting on the lower half, yellow fins, and blue striping running along the back. It lacks pelvic fins, but use the pectoral fins to move about. Its teeth are actually a fused beak-like structure. Parts of its flesh are poisonous. It has the ability, when threatened or alarmed, to inflate its body to almost twice its normal size.

Fu Manchu Lionfish (Dendrochirus biocellatus)

Found at "Alex's" Rock.

Reef Scorpionfish (Scorpaenopsis cirrhosa)

An extremely well camouflaged ambush predator. It will usually lay still even when detected and closely approached. As its name implies, one must never touch this or any other species of Scorpionfish as they can inflict very painful wounds with their venomous fin spines. This Scorpionfish was found by Alex who was good at finding well camouflaged creatures.

Harlequin Sweetlips (Plectorhinchus chaetodonoides)

Elegant Squat Lobster (Allogalathea elegans)

Members of the Galatheidae have flattened, oval, and elongated bodies with a pointed, sharp rostum. They are a cross between shrimps and crabs and resmbles true lobsters because they have characteristic long chelipeds. This commensal species is regularly observed among the arms of feather stars(its only host), sometimes alone but more often in pairs. Females are larger than males. Their colour is bright and highly variable, usually with longitudinal bands running down the length of the carapace and along the chelipeds: it usually follows very closely to the colour of its crinoid host with a surprising good camouflaging effect.

Holoturian Harlequin Crab (Lissocarcinus orbicularis)

A small swimmer crab, the last pair of legs is modified in fins. Colour is variable(dependant on its cucumber host), usually white, brown and cream orange. The colour pattern can be reversed(brown with white spots or white with brown spots). Carapace edge almost smooth, the space between the eyes slightly pointed(pointed rostum). Carapace length is about 3 cm across. The legs and Chelipeds are striped. They are always found alone in association with holoturians (gen. Bohadschia), on which it lives as a commensal. When threatened it can enter the cucumber host's anus.

Imperial Partner Shrimp (Periclemenes imperator)

Found on the same cucumber host as the Harlequin crab above. They can live on a variety of hosts, mainly large sea cucumbers, large nudibranchs and seastars. A really gorgeous commensal shrimp with a broad, duck-billed like rostum and a generally bright orange body finely ornamented in white saddles and purple accents. They are usually found in pairs. Look out for them on the Bohadschia sp. and Stihopus sp. sea cucumbers, as well as on Nudibranchs like Spanish Dancer(Hexabranchus sanguiness) and seastars of the genus Gomophia. They are fairly easy to approach and won't spook if the photographer/ diver is careful in his/her advance.

Berry's Bobtail Squid (Euprymna berryi)

Bobtail squid are a group of cephalopods closely related to cuttlefish. Bobtail squid tend to have a rounder mantle than cuttlefish and have no cuttlebone. This species is a small( about only 3cm max), spherical body, 2 large rounded fins at the poterior end. They have eight suckered arms, two tentacles(Four rows of suckers on the tentacles) and a pair of large green eyes. They live in shallow coastal waters of the Pacific and a small part of the Indian oceans. Like cuttlefish they can swim by either using the fins on their mantle or by jet propulsion. They are also known as Dumpling squid (owing to their rounded mantle) or Stubby squid. Bobtail squid have a symbiotic relationship with bioluminescent bacteria which inhabit a special light organ in the squid's mantle. The bacteria are fed a sugar solution and amino acids by the squid and in return hide the squid's silhouette when viewed from below by matching the amount of light hitting the top of the mantle. A layer of iridescent cells gives to the animal a typical blue green, changing colour. When the chromatophores (the cells with the brown pigment) expand, the iridescence is concealed.

Berry's Bobtail Squid (Euprymna berryi)

Encountered on sandy bottoms, usually in lagoon or bay. Buried under the sand in the day, it can glue sand on its back using glue glands. It swims at night, using the light organs under its belly for camouflage when approaching the preys(normally benthic crustaceans) and to avoid predators as well. They will bury themselves in the sands when threatened. This little guy was desperately scooping sand over its head and body with its pair of tentacles. A cute and funny scene.

Korch's Bobtail Squid (Sepiadarium kochii)

Another rarely encountered species of Bobtail Squid. It is small and its mantle is dome-shaped. Dorsal mantle fused to head; length of fused portion approximately 1/4 mantle length. Mantle cavity divided by thin septum. Ventral mantle fused to each side of proximal end of funnel. Fins narrow; oblong; short, do not exceed length of mantle anteriorly or posteriorly; posteriorly with wide gap between them; attached along posterior half of mantle. Male and female arms subequal in length. Non-hectocotylized arm sucker arrangement same in both sexes. Club with 8 suckers in transverse rows; all suckers of similar minute size; very densely set. Colour of the Korch's Bobtail Squid: Dorsal mantle surface covered with large, white leucophores surrounded by smaller red brown chromatophores.
Size: Up to 3 cm mantle length.

Korch's Bobtail Squid (Sepiadarium kochii)

Similar to Euprymna berryi it spends its day buried in sand and emerges at night to feed on small crustacea. This species is not recorded in Manado. They are more widely distributed in the Indo-Pacific region: throughout Indo-Malayan waters from Japan (Tokyo Bay, Pacific side and Toyama Bay (Japan Sea side)), Taiwan, Province of China and the South China Sea to India; southern Indonesia to New Guinea and northern Australia. A rare find for us indeed.

An Olive Whelk crawling at Alex's Rock

You'll know who is most satisfied about the day's diving from the magnitude of the smiles....

To be continued....

North Sulawesi, Manado - Part 2 : Arrival At Paradise

noreply@blogger.com (dragondiver) — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 14:05:00 +0000

Manado Dive Travel - 11 to 15 November 2006

Partie Deux de Six

Premier-jour : Saturday, 11 November 2006

Prior to Departure...
A very exciting day for me indeed...

My dad gave Michelle and I a lift to the Airport. We reached 1 and a half hours prior to depature time. I thought it was still early because Michelle took the liberty of checking in online for us the day before so as to expedite the smooth clearance at the airport.

We had breakfast at Polar Cafeteria at the basement of Changi's Terminal 2 while waiting for Alex. He arrived not long after and we proceeded to check in our luggage and dive equipment at Silkair's counter.

It was about 1 hour before flight departure but we were told it was too late to check in the baggage. The ground attendant told us we have to hurry to the gate as it was almost boarding time. So no choice, we got to lug all our heavy and bulky items onboard. We just cleared immigration when it was last call to board. The three of us panicked and threw our stuff on the trolleys and drove it recklessly towards our gate. That damn gate was so far away... we were already rushing through the bustling crowd inside T2 like mad dogs when our gate was closing.... That made me sweat even more.... It took us 10 mins of running to get to Gate 10. That bloody Changi airport was so damn big. What an early morning workout!

When we arrived at gate number 10, there was still a long queue for security clearance. I was like thinking - What the heck! I never knew Changi airport's system to be that "efficient"! Finally boarded the plane for a good 3 hour rest. The flight stewardess lived up to Singapore Airline's reputation. They were friendly and pleasant - some form of consolation i guess...

The flight bounded for Manado was full of "Ang Mos"! I reckoned only 10% were Asians, us inclusive. Most were divers like ourselves because they were also lugging expensive regulator systems and photography equipment onboard.

We arrived at Manado's Sam Ratulangi Airport at the stipulated time. We met Jerry, Barracuda Resort's coordinator and proceed with the 45 mins overland transfer.

Arrival @ Barracuda Diving Resort
We were given a warm welcome by the resort's staff and met our dive guide Noldi who will be showing us the wonders of Manado and Lembeh for the next few days. We quickly settled in and was ushered to our rooms after filling up the necessary paperwork. We opted for a large triple sharing hut further up the hill and to our delight, it was well furnished and maintained. There was a wide private veranda where Alex tied his hammock. The view was perfect as per mentioned in my previous post. Enjoy the scenic views of awesome volcanoes and Manado Bay. Catch the magnificent sun sinking into the horizon turning the waters red-gold with its rays. The cottage hut is a spacious deluxe chalet with a single and a king sized bed. There was also an attached bathroom with hot shower( what our michelle can't live without..) and the room was fully air-conditioned.... There was even a satelite television with DVD player( that can't work... maybe our luck). After we settled in, we hurried down the Jetty for our virgin dive in Manado.

Introducing my Room mates and Dive Buddies: Alex and Michelle

Check Out Dive!
Dive Site: Barracuda Resort's House Reef (Molas Beach)
Location: Manado Bay
Visibilty: 8 m
Temperature: 28°C
Maximum Depth: 20 m

The Buddy Trio

It was low tide and the boat was stuck in the mud. The boat men and Noldi were trying very hard to push the boat out of the shallow mangrove swamp. It was tedious work.

This is getting interesting as I thought. Our first dive was to be done at this swamp full of seagrasses and mangrove roots? It was certainly a first time for me to dive into a mangrove habitat. I really don't know what to expect. We got on board the boat and it scooted a little further out into deeper waters. Our first descend was so dramatic and erractic. We were blobbing up and down on the surface unable to descend due to bouyant equipment. I tucked at my BC and wet suit to release the trap air and was then able to descend slowly. Whilst desending I suddenly find myself surrounded by lots of "jellyfish" floating in mid water column. Holy cow! On a closer inspection, they were only plastic bags.... I met Alex soon after at the bottom but we can still see Michelle struggling at the surface( yes the visiblity was fairly good for a swamp). Noldi ascended and added more weights to Michelle and she sank like a stone.

I was amazed by the house reef's environment. Among the black volcanic sands are coral heads rich with life! The gradually sloping sandy bottom are full of surprises. This muck site poses a challenge especially when it is constantly swept by long shore drift. Good bouyancy is a must as the sand will stir easily when disturbed. Our overly weighted Michelle was having a good time destroying my opportunities at photography. She was stomping through the sand thus creating a trail of a sand storm in her wake! She deposited a heap of sand on the Clark's Anemonefish eggs while I was taking pictures. It made Mummy Nemo really pissed and started attacking me in defence of her clutch of brood.

Clark's Anemonefish (Amphiprion clarkii)

The parents with their orange-red roes deposited on the log beside the anemone. The female is always the larger and more aggressive of the two. All anemonefish start life as male and gradually grow and change its sex to female to assume the role of dominance in an anemone community. Being highly territorial and feisty, they will be ready to face any perceived threat. They swim up from their host and snap at the intruder boldly when you come too close to their anemone home.

Blue spotted stingray (Dasyatis Kuhlii)

Rhomboid disc, anterior and posterior margins of disc mildly convex. Rostrum grey or tan with blue (occasionally white) spots about eye size and smaller black spots. Tail is about 2 times body length. End of tail is banded with black and white. It likes bury itself in sand or cruises over reef flats looking for crabs and shrimps.

Commensal Shrimp (Periclemenes magnificus)

This shrimp looks superficially similar to many other commensal shrimps belonging to the same genus. This species may be readily identified by its transparent body, marked with five white bands, often thinly outlined in red. Chelipeds, antennae, abdominal hump, tail and eyes are also white. The specimen above is a colour variation with a tinge of bluish purple on the edge of its chelipeds and tail. The distinction is its characteristic posture - Methodically and rythmically swaying to and fro its perch, all the while keep its chelipeds in an unmistable "fold arms" pose.

Cleaner Rock Shrimp (Urocaridella antonbrunii)

A beautiful shrimp that is marked in bright red and white spots against a transparent livery. It oftens float motionlessly in the water column maintaining neutral bouyancy and boldly approach visiting fishes and photographers alike to clean them.

White-banded Cleaner Shrimp (Lysmata amboinensis)

This is a highly specialised cleaner shrimp whose preferred clients are in particular groupers and morays. It will often enter gill openings and go inside gaping mouth of the fish to remove scraps of food and decaying matter. They sometimes congregate in large groups and are easily recognised by its red and yellowish body with a bright white dorsal stripe. The antennae are also recognisably longer than its body length and are distinctively white.

Hairy Squat Lobster (Lauriea siagiani)

This tiny guy was found by Noldi's eagle eyes.... completely blended in with the pinkish orange sponge of genus Xestospongia which it exclusively live on. Underwater, it looks drab and dull orange brown. But once illuminated with white light, it reveals its true neon-pink colouration. The body and legs are striped in bright flourescent purple and covered with long white and pink bristles.

Hairy Squat Lobster (Lauriea siagiani)

Closer frontal shot... This cute hairy guy elicits great admiration and is so small that a super macro lens will be needed to properly get a good set of enlargement. They are usually found in pairs on Xestospongia barrels.

Spot-legged coral crab (Trapezia guttata)

Trapezia species like this cute tiny guy are usually found among branching hard coral colonies. This species is almost exclusively found among Seriotopora hystrix ramifications and can be identified by the bright white spots visible on the inside of each arm when feeding. Take a closer look and you'll see their distinct spotted legs.

Purple-tipped Janolus (Janolus sp. 4)

This is still an undescribed species of the Nudibranchia Janolus. It belong to the family of Zephyrinidae and of suborder Arminina. Species of Janolus are bryozoan feeders.

Geometric Chromodoris (left) and Reticulated Chromodoris (right)

Both the Chromodoris geometrica and Chromodoris reticulata belonged to the same family of Chromodorididae.
Chromodoris geometrica has an interesting mimicry of its Phyllidiid cousins to ward of predators. Nudibranchs in Phyllidiidae have the capabilities of exuding very noxious and toxic chemical irritants from their when harrassed and appear to be avoided by most fish. They are often the only sea slugs which blatantly crawl out in the open during the day. Apart from the characteristic dorsal colour pattern, which resembles a Phyllidiid, this species is one of a group with a fairly large anterior mantle skirt which waves up and down as the animal crawls along, and is purple on its underside.
Chromodoris reticulata is actually a colour variation of Chromodoris tinctoria. In the reticulated Chromodoris it is lacking a yellow margin around the edge of its mantle skirt. Internal anatomy suggests that both are actually the same species.

Batangas Halgerda (Halgerda batangas)

This Nudibranch is of the Dorididae family. Its distinctively ridged body made its identification as a Halgerda easy. The pink translucent body, veined in orange and speckled with bright orange spots on ridge summit made it a very photogenic subject. Its rhinopores and gills are also differently marked in brownish black spots.

Leaf Fish (Taenianotus triacanthus)

Can be easily overlooked due to their amazing camouflage. Leaf-thin in section, they tend to stay still, often swaying like a decaying vegetation in the currents. If threatened, they will clumsily and slowly "hop" along, literally walking with their paddle-like pectoral fins. They come in an array of colours from bright white, reddish brown, lemon yellow, lime green and even bright fuchsia. They are ambush predators and they belong to the family of Scorpaenidae along with stonefish and lionfish. So never ever touch them unless you want to get yourself inflicted with their poisonous spines.

Red Firefish or the Common Lionfish (Pterois Volitans)

An adolescent P. volitans lionfish. This is the typical dark brown (red) color morph. The striping pattern varies on almost all of these fish. What is noteworthy is that the center of the pectoral fins is almost translucent and bright white spotted. Also, Volitans lionfish have multiple mandibular projections, and two ruffled ocular projections.

Fu Manchurian Fish or the Twin-Spot Lionfish (Dendrochirus biocellatus)

The Fu Manchu name comes from the large skin flaps, or whiskers hanging down from either side of its mouth and looking very much like a Fu Manchu mustache. The Twinspot name comes from two dark eyespots ringed with yellow and red that occur on the dorsal fin just above the caudal peduncle.

Spot-fin Lionfish (Pterois antennata)

Antennata lions are beautifully marked with alternating vertical bands of reds, whites, and browns, and are readily identified by their long, white free rays of the pectoral fins which possess webbing that connects only halfway up the fin ray. This membranous area has one or beautiful dark blue spots resembling eyespots. The posterior portion of each fin ray is whitish and extends to past the caudal peduncle on the ventral portion of the pectoral fin; each fin ray is independent and not connected by webbing. They also have frilled( not leaf-shaped) tentacles above the eyes.

Starry or the Giant Pufferfish (Arothron stellatus)

Adult Starry Pufferfish are white with numerous small black spots that become relatively smaller and more numerous as the fish grows. Juveniles are orange with small black spots. They have diagonal black bands crossing the abdomen. This species grows to 1.2 m in length. It has a variable diet that can include sea urchins, crustaceans, sponges, coral and algae. The Starry Pufferfish occurs in tropical marine waters of the Indo-Pacific. This huge specimen of about 1 m in length was resting lazily on the sandy bottom... very easy to approach.

Yellow-banded Pipefish or the Network Pipefish (Corythoichthys flavofasciatus)

Unmistakable yellow-lined livery with reddish pipe snout and a networked of fine black vein-like lines marking longitudinally along its body length.

Banded Pipefish (Doryrhamphus dactyliophorus)

A beautiful, free swimming and active species. Often in pairs or in loose congregations near the base of boulders and rocky slopes, especially where there are long-spined sea urchins. They like to seek refuge between the spines to escape predators.

Homosapiens michellea (left) Homosapiens alexus (right)

Michellea, a very "disgusting" species that is fairly common underwater. I have seen her twice this year underwater at Sipadan and Manado. She spot a pair of distinct neon yellow fins that made her easy to identify. Always seen with a greyish dull "Mares" livery, she swims rather clumsily along sandy bottom but can hover efficiently in mid water column. She doesn't like small critters and hates Nudibranchs. She also hates thermocline and prefers warm calm waters to current swept cold conditions. She also likes to dwell near wrecks.
Alexus is also commonly known as the Green-ass monster. Contrary to his name, this green butt creature is non-aggressive in nature. In fact he is always ready to pose funnily for the camera whenever there's opportunity. Bouyancy of this creature is very good. There is no problem for him hovering just above sandy bottoms. He has a pair of keen eyes for macro subjects but prefers the deep blue to muck sandy sites because of his thirst for bigger pelagics.

Night Dive!
Dive Site: Black Rock (Batu Hitam)
Location: Manado Bay
Visibilty: 5 m
Temperature: 26°C-28°C
Maximum Depth: 20 m

It was already very dark at 6pm. It is like 8pm in Singapore. Strange thing is that North Sulawesi is in the same time zone as Singapore but has got different sunrise and sun set times.
There were no lights on the boat and it was so freakin' dark...... we were all stumbling to find our equipment and to gear up.

It was just a short 5 mins boat ride out to Black rock. We eagerly got into the water and commenced our night time adventure....

Flying Gurnard (Dactyloptena orientalis)

On first descend, it was right below us! We all but Michelle saw it. It was resting motionlessly on the sandy seabed and none of my buddies seemed to be interested in it. It was my first Flying Gurnard and therefore, I had to see its flight display. I came close to it deliberately alarming it but not overly molested. It started to flare its enormous, brilliantly coloured pectoral fins and at the same time, raising its dorsal spine above its head while taking flight. It elegantly glided away in a zig zig fashion. It is an almost perfect disc-like shape when seen above. It is a hunter of gobies and some crustaceans. The layman rarely realises this species is closely related to true scorpionfish.

Spot-fin Lionfish (Pterois antennata)

Note its uniquely frilled antenna and its pair of beautifully blue spotted pectoral fins.

Common Lionfish (Pterois volitans)

This is the Juvenile of the common lionfish. The juveniles are often exquiste in their colour and body markings. This tiny individual is decorated with exagerating large spots on its almost transparent pectorals fins.

Harlequin Sweetlips (Plectorhinchus chaetodonoides)

This tiny specimen is a juvenile of the Harlequin Sweetlips. Juvenile Harlequin Sweetlips under 7-8cm in length, are brown with large dark-edged, white spots. They swim with the head pointing down and with exaggerated fin movements resulting in an undulating motion. At this size the Harlequin Sweetlips is believed to be mimicking a poisonous nudibranch or flatworm to escape predatory. As juveniles grow, the brown base colour disappears and dark brown spots develop. Adults are white with dark brown spots on the body and fins. Harlequin Sweetlips grow to 60cm in length. Juveniles live in lagoons, but adults live in deeper water and are often observed under ledges or in caves.

Unknown Fish (Unidentified)

This small fish of only about 1cm was undulating and desperately trying to hide under the coral. Judging from its black and white striped livery and an elongated dorsal anterior fin, this does look like the juveniles of some Drums and Jacknife fishes.

Ornate Ghost Pipefish (Solenostomus paradoxus)

My first ornate ghost pipefish encounter! It is one of the most beautiful, fascinating and sought after macro species. Its colouration is highly variable, but usually very striking and with large stripes and spots of yellow, white, black, red and blue. They are often found associated to crinoids and gorgonians.

Spot-face Moray (Gymnothorax fimbriatus)

This is one of the easiest to identify species of moray eels. Distinguished by its lemon yellow, dark-spotted head, its elongated snout and its very freckled pale white body. Ots behaviour does not differ considerably from that of other moray species. They are not aggressive and will invariably retreat into their lair if closely approached.

Striped Catfish (Plotosus lineatus)

They are gregarious, often found in dense ball-like schools, steam-rolling over the sandy bottom in search of food. Striped Catfish like all other catfish, possess venomous spines and this species in particular are capable of inflicting extremely painful injuries or even cause death!

Banded Boxer Shrimp (Stenopus hispidus)

A beautiful and very compliant photo subject. It is the most commonly encountered and observed cleaner shrimp in tropical waters.

Banded Boxer Shrimp (Stenopus hispidus)

Its spectacular red and white coloured bands makes it highly visible and advertises its cleaning services to would be customers, giving it a degree of safety from riving predators. They are bold species often staying out of their holes and waving its long antennae to entice passing fish to stop by for some good cleaning service.

Maculata Spearing Mantis Shrimp (Lysiosquilla maculata)

A huge species, living in monogamous pairs in burrows dug in the substrate. Front parts are speckled (and completely blended in with the sand colour) while the rest of its body is banded. This species is a "spearer", capable of impaling a fish on its specially evolved raptorial claws in a 3 millisecond strike! As with other Mantis shrimps, they can inflict serious and severe wounds if man-handled.

Spider Crab (Chirostylus dolichopus)

Also known as deep sea Squat Lobsters, they usually live outside the range of recreational divers. This species however, as uncomon as it is and on rare occasions, can be encountered within our recreational depth. It is a very interesting, colourful and extremely long-legged crab and is rarely observed while it perches in full sight on large gorgonian fans in current prone areas. Count myself lucky, this spidey crab was indeed an unusual find and it posed boldly for my camera.

Unknown spider Crab? (Unidentified)

I got no reference to this creature. There were 4 or 5 of them crawling around a sponge so I reckoned they are quite common in local waters. It has a typical spread of its long legs like those of spider crab. Its bristled frontal legs somewhat looked like modified claws for spearing its prey and clinging on to them tightly. It is also armed with a pair of chelipeds (frontal pincers) like most squat lobsters and crabs but unlike them, its body is slim and elongated. Last but not least, this guy has a head with an uncanny resemblance to its anthropod counterpart on land - a red army ant.

Red-spotted Coral Crab (Trapezia rufopunctata)

Easily recognised by the multitudes of round red spots on a pinkish white background. This tiny female was captured with roes underneath its belly. This tiny species live exclusively among the branching colonies of the Pocillopora hard corals.

Decorator Crab (Camposcia retusa)

An unsurpassed master of camouflage, usually completely covered with bits of debris - including living organisms like sponges, hydroids and algae - and slowly, clumsily moving among rubble. It is quite imposible to make out from the background if it's not moving around, and even then really difficult to see.

Tropical Sponge Crab (Dromia dormia)

A large Tropical Sponge Crab moved across the coral reef at night carrying a sponge as cover.
This crab has a furry carapace and white tipped claws, typical of this species.

Crested Nembrotha (Nembrotha cristata)

This nudibranch is of the family Polyceridae. It has 3 feathery sets of gills (characteristic of the Nembrotha) capable of retracting when disturbed. This tiny specimen was only about 1 cm. Had a hard time locking focus on this one.

Ocellate Platydoris (Platydoris ocellata)

Typical shape for the genus with a broad, thin, leathery mantle skirt and raised crenulate rhinophore and gill pockets. Mantle brown with small raise white tubercles. Around the mantle edge is a cream to yellowish marginal band and a dark reddish brown submarginal band. On the inside of this brown band there is sometimes a continuation of the yellowish margin, and sometimes a translucent white band which gradually diffuses into the brown background. Usually there are scattered white spots, ringed with dark brown, on the mantle. In some specimens these are large and prominent, while in other specimens they are small and inconspicuous.

Ocellate Platydoris (Platydoris ocellata)

Its gills retracted into its pocket after i came too close..... Resembles a large flatworm with it gill retracted but it is an ophistobranch of the order, Nudibrachia and belongs to family, Dorididae.

Polyclad Flatworm (Pseudoceros bifurcus)

Lavender blue in colour, with a longitudinal stripe along the midline. The stripe is mainly white, orange anteriorly, and with a purple edge posteriorly. Mainly feeding on colonial ascidians, extruding tubules from the pharynges and attacking simultaneously the inner organs of different zooids.

Tiger Cowrie (Cypraea tigris)

Cowries are a type of mollusc that have very smooth, shiny and beautifully patterned shells. Their soft elastic mantle often extend to cover the entire exterior of its shell during feeding and retract into the relative safety of their hard housing when threatened, revealing the beauty of mother nature's work. Their survival is highly threatened due to the excessive collection of the shells. Well Mr Alex happened to collect one such shell during our adventures underwater... thankfully the shell has got no occupant.

Rest and relax...

We were famished after the dives and tucked into the sumptous Minahasa styled cuisine. God, the chilli was deliciously spicy!! While we were having dinner, a large Mangrove Crab crawled out from Alex's dive bag across the dining hall.... without much hestitation, I grabbed my camera and took snap shots of that delicious looking critter. It scooted hurriedly into the bushes.

This is a mother with her clutch of unhatched brood... Look delicious and all meaty but poisonous to consume...

We were fascinated by a large 1 string instrument that the folks there DIY.... Alex being apt at playing all these stringed musical instruments performed a brief tune that sounded really good to the ear. We had a game of pool before retiring to our rooms.

Alex and the humogous 1 string guitar....

The pathway leading back to our cottage was full of croaking "Gua" (as michelle termed it) hopping around at night... Rhe way was dimly lit and it freaked the life our of our Ms Disgusting... We had a good refreshing bath before we excitedly logged our dives for the day. We slept early that night looking forward to and anticipating the excitement for the following day!

To be continued.... Day 2: Bunaken diving, Pgymies and the Mandarins display on part trois!

North Sulawesi, Manado - Part 1 : A Volcanic Scape of Minahasa Culture

noreply@blogger.com (dragondiver) — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 11:58:00 +0000

Manado Dive Travel - 11 to 15 November 2006

Partie Un de Six

Paradise on our doorstep - Barracuda Diving Resort

Manado, the capital city of North Sulawesi, Indonesia, is in the epicentre of marine bio-diversity on the planet. The Celebes sea around North Sulawesi holds the richest concentration of marine heterogeneity as compared to anywhere else in the world.

Simply living on the edge. That’s the appeal of diving the walled reefs of Bunaken. It’s the essence of Northern Sulawesi, perched aside the Pacific Ocean’s great volcanic arc, the ‘Ring of Fire’. It is now a popular destination for discerning dive tourists, earmarked to become a World Heritage Site.

Dive destinations in North Sulawesi include: Manado Bay, Bunaken Marine Park, Lembeh Straits, Bangka group of islands, Siau, Sangihe and Talaud islands. I dived Manado Bay, Bunaken Marine Park and Lembeh Straits during this short but enriching trip with Barracuda Diving Resort.

Manado is such a diver and photographer-friendly destination in my opinion. First of all, heaven never has been easier to get to. Just a short 3 hr flight from Singapore and you’re there. The provincial capital of Manado is one of the international gateways into Indonesia. Silkair serves Manado's Sam Ratulangi Airport 4 times weekly from Singapore's Changi Airport(T2) and allows addition baggage check-in for dive gear. Regular flights from all parts of the Indonesian archipelago also service this beautiful town as well as the smaller airports of Gorontalo, Tahuna and Talaud.

Barracuda Diving Resort is situated on Molas Beach in Manado Bay. It is just 45 mins away from Manado's Sam Ratulangi Airport by land transfer and is very near the city area. A very unique resort which offers spectacular sea view from our hillside spacious accomodation. The panorama is an unobstructed spectacle of the calm Celebes sea, distinctly separated from the sky by a fine line horizon facing West! The sea view is sandwiched by 2 of the most famous and beautiful Volcanoes in North Sulawesi; Manado Tua and Mount Lokon. Combine the vista at sunset with the scape of perspective from our private veranda, the resultant is a scenic picturesque at dusk that could melt anyone's heart.

It has got its own private jetty amid its very unique coastal boundaries: A Mangrove Ecosystem! There are patches of seagrasses in the shallows just below the jetty where sightings of Dugong feeding on them are frequent. Juvenile fishes are abundant and sea snakes, moray eels and estuarine crocodiles are not uncommon.

The resort is well furnished and comfortable with air-conditioning. A clean and spacious bathroom toilet with hot shower is attached to our generously large bungalow hut.

The resort staffs are friendly and they can cook really yummy food! (except that the menu was recyled hmm... )

The boat and dive professionals are very experienced people. Your dive equipment is already onboard, managed and daily washed by the resort’s staff from your first day to the last – you just have to dress up before jumping into the water (and undress when you come out of it!). They rig up your gear for you, made sure that the tanks are charged appropriately to 200 bar/3000 psi and that everything is in order. They even assist you when gearing up and help you entry the water properly. Their service is just excellent! Our dedicated dive guide, Noldi is a PADI Dive Master with at least 15 years of experience in local waters. He seeks your opinion in what you wish to see underwater, gives suggestions on dive planing, recommend sites and tries his best to find the marine targets. He is indeed very efficient as he found all the 3 different rare and newly discovered species of Pgymy Seahorses as well as other tiny and weird critters that we weren't able to distinguish even at close encounters... simply superb!

The people of North Sulawesi can be classified into four groups; Minahasa, Bolaang Mongondow, Gorontalo and the Sangir Talaud. The Minahasans are centered around the Provincial capital of Manado, but the entire province has a strong tradition of trade and contact with the outside world. The Sangir-Talaud islands, to the north of the mainland, form a natural bridge to the Philippines providing a convenient route for people and culture to easily move between Indonesia and the Philippines, and many traces of Filipino culture can still be found here. The Dutch, however, have had the most influential effect on the development of the area. Apart from introducing a strong political and religious structure, the Filipinos encouraged the local populations to raise coconuts, for copra, and nutmeg. Today the main industries of the province are copra and cloves. North Sulawesi has a larger concentration of coconut trees than anywhere else in Indonesia.

First contacts with European traders came in the 16th century with the arrival of the Spanish and Portuguese and with them they brought Christianity. It wasn't until the arrival of the Dutch, however, that Christianity became the predominant religion of the area with the western parts of the province of Bolaang Mongondow and Gorontalo remaining as small Muslim principalities until the turn of the century.

Besides diving, there are so much to do in Manado. One can go for a forest trail at the nearby Tangkoko Rainforest. Tangkoko National Park offers protected environment for various animal life like the famous Tarsius Spectrum - a small monkey with black long tail and couple of big eyes ( The smallest primate in the world exclusively indigenous to North Sulawesi only ), Kuskus, Anoa( dwarf buffalo), Babi Rusa ( pigs deer ) and Maleo Birds. There's always volcano hikes for the more adventurous to Mt Mahawu or Mt Lokon to experience the breathtaking views of Manado over looking all the volcanoes as well as the island heaven in the region. One can also do white water rafting off Timbukar river where you will see beautiful waterfalls plunging several hundreds of metres off the cliffs as well as geysers sprouting hot steams off the volcanic lands of Tinoor highlands. There's Linow Lake, a colourful body of sulphuric acid bubbling in the spectrum of rainbow......
Unfortunately, we ain't got time and money to experience all these land activities so we just slacked at the resort on the last day... will definitely be back for action!

Manado's main attractions are off-shore, however, with truly amazing coral reefs off nearby Bunaken island which is now a protected Marine Park and offer some of the best diving and snorkeling in the world!

Stay tune for my trip report on part deux!

Jet Star Asia 2nd Birthday!

noreply@blogger.com (dragondiver) — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 02:36:00 +0000

The Banner says it all! Start planning your holidays to the selected destinations and fly with Jet Star Asia from Singapore! Book by 17 November and travel between 4 Jan 2007 and 30 June 2007. Phuket will be in season for diving from now until May 2007. Bali's season is all year round but the best times will be from June till October in 2007. Checkout their webby by following the link above!

Dive Expedition to the Southern Islands

noreply@blogger.com (dragondiver) — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 11:40:00 +0000

27th August 2006, Sunday

7.30 am
Tiring day! Just got home from work a couple of hours earlier and had to leave home for a full day of diving. Lingjun drove and fetched me. We headed for Harborfront.

7.55 am
We reached the Hawker centre opposite Harbourfront and packed some Lunch.

8.10 am
We were already late and headed straight for Keppel Marina @ Bt Chermin Road.

8.20 am
We arrived at Keppel Marina and saw Chay Hoon alone at the Dotty Cafe. I asked her where the rest were and she informed me that she's diving with the Hantu Blog @ 9 am. They probably left without us as I reckoned we were 20 mins late. Lingjun and I walked out to the jetty and saw the Southern Comfort leaving......

8.30 am
We were actually quite ready to go home when some of the guys onboard Southern Comfort called out to us.... It seemed like they're still expecting us and indeed, the small little Dolphin Explorer 2 was waiting out for us around the corner obscured from view.

8.40 am
Lingjun was having her...um first day(u noe... women's monthly problem) and she anxiously checked out if there's toilet facilities onboard.... To her disappointment and horror?? It was a small little semi exposed cubicle where your little privacy could be intruded if someone just happened to turn and look... Our request to go onboard Southern Comfort instead was rejected.
That really worried Lingjun alot as she didn't know what to do.... she headed for the toilet at Dotty cafe one last time just to check on her stuffs... meanwhile i helped complete all the necessary paperwork.

Pulau Jong... The Island of Junks
8.55 am
We head out for our first divesite of the day: Pulau Jong.
The weather was fair and sea conditions were calm. I never dive P. Jong (Junk Island) before prior to this trip so I did not know what to anticipate.... The boat operator, Francis gave a dive briefing before we hit the waters and I was entralled when he said Jong has a good diversity of critters like nudibranchs....

9.30 am
Entered the waters at the sheltered western side of Pulau Jong. The eastern side of the island is a shipping fairway. The visibility was sweet! It was like 3-5 metres. There was little or no currents. Reef life was very good. There's a diversity of healthy coral growth... From sea anemones, acorporals, gorgornian fans to large brain corals... The silt suspension in the water was visibily lower than that at P. Hantu in comparison. There's alot of Yellow-tail Fusiliers, Copperband butterflyfishes, Damsels and Anemone Clownfishes... Strange thing was that all the nudibranchs had gone into hiding.... I only managed to come across 2 phyillids and a facelina.

A pair of Phyllidiella pustulosa

A juvenile Pteraeolidia ianthina

Undescribed Polyclad Flatworm (Pseudobiceros sp.)

Lingjun in the relatively calm waters around Pulau Jong

Pulau Biola and the Raffles Lighthouse...
10.55 am
We left Pulau Jong for our next destination, Pulau Biola. Pulau Biola is a small island outcrop just next to Pulau Satumu, the island that Raffles Lighthouse was built on. It is a restricted area and it requires permit to come within 300m radius of the island. Needless to say Dolphin Explorer ain't got any permit to bring us there so we were a bunch of illegals onboard sneaking within the island legal boundaries. The reef around the Lighthouse is among the healthiest in our waters and holds the richest diversity of marine life you can find in Singapore. You can also expect the best visiblity here at an average of 5-10 metres. Sharks, morays and even dolphins are sighted here which are rare anywhere else in Singapore. Due to the straits and the open sea, this unsheltered site is exposed to the elements of weather and is swept by the wildest currents.

11.20 am
There was a 3rd Gen Police Coast Guard(PCG) boat about 100m off Raffles Lighthouse and another one patrolling vigilantly around the vincinity. It was impossible for us to get into the waters. What bad luck.... I believed they were watching us closely and would swoop in on us immediately if we were to jump into the waters... Francis cruised the pleasure craft around Raffles Lighthouse for a while and then decided to head for Pulau Salu instead for our next dive......

Pulau Biola (The Island of Violins)

Raffles Lighthouse on Pulau Satumu (The Island with One Mangrove Tree)

Pulau Salu...An emerald island setting in the watercourse channels
11.55 am
We reached Pulau Salu's western reef. The upcoming 2 dives would be done here. There was bad air visibility at noon and the haze enveloped Pulau Salu's facade of tropical green that I fancied the last time I was here. The White-bellied sea eagles were still encircling the little island jewel.

12.00 pm
Lingjun and I were trying to swim inland for a good 10mins before descending but we decided against it because we sensed surface swells pushing us southwards. We descended into a bed of seagrass and continued north. The underwater scene was pretty much the same when I last visited Salu. The distinct greenish hued waters and the thick foliage of greens made nagivation a challenge. There wasn't much to see here except for a few crabs and whelks. My special find of this dive was a pair of Whip coral partner shrimps. Very tiny! My first sighting of such species.

A defensive Blue Swimming Crab (Thalamita sp.)
This is a male, distinguished by its fiery red pincers while the female possess blue claws

Whip Coral Partner Shrimp (Pontonides unciger)
A commensal of black coral colonies belonging to the genus Cirripathes

Pontonides unciger are usually found in pairs, living exclusively on its antipatharian host (commonly known as "black coral" whip), of which it perfectly mimics the polyps of the sea whip

1.00 pm
We surfaced after spending 50 mins of bottom time. We were beside Southern Comfort, taking our sweet time to make fun and take pictures... totally unaware of the currents sweeping us from below. Before we realised, we were swept more than 100 m inland towards the fairways between Pulau Salu and Pulau Sudong. We turned and saw all other divers on the surface struggling against the surface swells while Lingjun and I were comfortably riding on the swift flow. It was a long and tiring swim back to Dolphin Explorer. Although She is only about 50 m away, we spent 20 mins doing extreme workout against the treacherous flow. We eventually got back onboard while some others gave up and freeflowed into the main stream. I saw a couple hanging onto the trunk of a partially submerged tree(as you can see in the background of the pic above) for their dear lives. A rescue boat was called in to retrieve them out of the situation.

2.00 pm
Dolphin Explorer finally managed to get everyone onboard. It had been only 2 dives and everyone was worn and torn.... We had lunch to replenish the lost energies and after a bit of rest, we were up and ready for the next dive!

2.35 pm
We entered Salu's waters and descended further out this time so that we will not hit the seagrass forests. The visiblity was not as good as the last dive and it got darker as we descended deeper. We went northeast towards the shallows after we hit the bottom at 12 m. There were alot of healthy gorgonian fans near the northern tip of Salu. Coral life looked good and the place was littered with sea urchins. This dive was a bit disappointing as we practically saw nothing interesting except a tiny brittle star wrapped tightly around a sea whip.

A Star find: An Unidentified Brittle Star belonging to the Class, Ophiuroidea

The brittle star (also called the serpent star) is a spiny, hard-skinned, long-armed animal that usually lives on the rocky sea floor, from shallow waters to great depths. These marine invertebrates can move very quickly by maneuvering their long arms. There are over 2,000 different species of brittle stars worldwide. They are nocturnal creatures and are seldom encounterd in daylight although they are abundant everywhere in Singapore waters. They usually hide under rocks, in crevices, in sand/mud or among coral colonies.
Anatomy: Most brittle stars have five (or a multiple of five) long, thin, spiny arms that radiate from a flat central disk; the arms do not touch each other at their bases. Many of the arms are forked. If a brittle star's arm is cut off, it will regenerate (regrow). Brittle stars that have multiple-forked arms are called basket stars. Most brittle stars are under 1 inch (2.5 cm) in diameter. They have a hard exoskeleton and vary in color. They do not have a brain; they have a simple ring of nerve cells that moves information around the body. Tube feet located along the arms sense light and smells.
Diet: Brittle stars are mainly detrivores (detritus-eaters); they eat decaying matter and plankton. Some brittle stars can also kill small animals. They push their stomach out through their mouth (which is located on the underside of the disk of the brittle stars) and digest the prey (there is no anus). The mouth has five teeth.

I can't find any reference that point to this particular species of serpent stars. Maybe it's a new record in Singapore?? Its distinct gaudy yellow polkadots, circumcised by black rings on a white based texture blends it to the seawhip.
Judging from its short spined arms, i would deduce that this Echinoderm is of the Order: Ophiurida, Family: Ophiodermatidae. A little help on ID here would be appreciated.....

3.25 pm
We tried turning back when we discovered strong currents pushing us northwards too fast. We were overwhelmed by the surge of the incoming tidal currents and Lingjun floated to the surface like a superman. We both surfaced and found ourselves in very shallow waters with urchins and seagrass right below us. We got no choice but to fight the surface currents and waves to reach the nearest boat. Dolphin Explorer was no where to be found! We fought a tiring and life draining battle with the sea for a good 30 mins before we triumphed and reached the safety of Southern Comfort.

4.00 pm
We were onboard Southern Comfort when Lingjun released her torchlight cache and empty the contents into the seawater.... there goes her $50 birthday present.....
Dolphin Explorer went to pick other divers in distress and we waited a while before leaving Pulau Salu for our last dive destination of the day: The Sudong Wreck!

Distressed diver lost her lights....

Sudong Wreck - The colours of a Steel Barge...
4.45 pm
We reached the site but the black buoy marking the wreck was gone??... Francis dropped the anchor and bingo! It hit the wreck. We descended along the anchor line down to the wreck to find the anchor stuck. Serveral of us helped by pulling the anchor to free it but it was too heavy. Other divers continued tucking at the anchor while Lingjun and I swam off for adventure(opps sorry). The wreck still amaze me and continued to fascinate me with its coral growth and life proliferation. Huge Seafans and green Acorporal corals that houses numerous critters are all over the sides and bottom of the wreck. Sponges, stinging hydriods and tunicates decorate the wreck in colourful shades of blue, yellow, green, orange and red! Lots of Blue Dragons and Iconaster sea stars. We spent 1 hour of bottom time foraging for critters and trying our luckto look for the resident tigertail seahorse(to no avail) . I was surprised to see 2 huge Emperor Angelfish inside the wreck but they're too shy for pictures.

Bristle-tail Filefish also known as a LeatherJacket (Acreichthys tomentosus) shying away from my camera

Leather Jackets have tough, sandpaper textured skin, hence their name. They can change their body colour to their surrounding environment and rely on camouflage as their survial trait. They cannot swim fast due to their oddly shaped body and small fins but are capable of short burst of speed. They usually assume postions near seagrass, swaying in the current like a piece of leaf or vegetation. When threatened, they will try to hide in crevices. They can grow to large sizes but those encountered on the reefs like the one above are juveniles measuring only about 5 cm. They are benthic feeders meaning they eat small bottom-dwelling animals like small prawns. It also nibbles on seaweed, seagrass and immobile animals like bryozoans and ascidians. It has a pointed mouth adapted for nibbling and sucking small prey out of their hiding places. There is a single long stiff dorsal spine, usually with downward pointing barbs on the edges. This feature gives it its scientific name: 'mono' means 'one' and 'canthus' means 'thorn'. The dorsal spine can be locked upright to wedge in crevices, safe from predators and from being swept away by currents. Most have a second dorsal spine but this is usually small. Filefishes belong to Family Monacanthidae. The family has 31 genera and 95 species. They are found in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans.

Sapphire margined Flatworm(Pseudoceros sapphirinus) wriggling across the seabed

An Allied Cowry extending its mantle wrapping around to feed on the seawhip

A Hermit Crab feeding

My superstar buddy

5.50 pm
We ended the dive because my superstar buddy has got very fat bouyant legs that were pulling her to the surface.... ha ha. We headed back and reached Keppel Marina at about 6.45pm. It was overall another day of good experience in Singapore waters doing extreme workout whilst breathing compressed air!

The fun buddy pair!

Cebu Pacific Resume Operations In Singapore

noreply@blogger.com (dragondiver) — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 05:10:00 +0000

Cebu Pacific (CEB), the Philippine’s low fare leader, will be operating four times weekly direct flights from Cebu to Singapore and three times weekly flights from Davao to Singapore (via Cebu) starting on October 23, 2006.

The Cebu-Singapore direct service is scheduled to operate every Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday while the Davao-Singapore service will operate every Monday, Friday and Saturday. Departure from Davao (to Cebu) is at 6pm and the flight consequently leaves Cebu for Singapore at 8pm to arrive in Singapore at 11:40pm. The flight leaves Singapore at 12:25am the following day, to arrive back in Cebu at 4:05am and in Davao at 6am.

The lowest ‘Go’ fare for the Cebu-Singapore service starts from P2,499(SGD $79) one-way while the Davao-Singapore route starts from P2,999(SGD $99) one-way. Fares are exclusive of surcharges and government taxes. The easiest way to book and purchase tickets is through CEB’s website (www.cebupacificair.com).

Cebu Pacific now operates at Singapore's Budget Terminal. The 'Go' Fares for return flights, Singapore-Cebu-Singapore can be as low as SGD $251 after inclusion of all taxes. Now diving Cebu will be so much cheaper and hassle-free. There are alot of interesting areas on Cebu Island that's very popular for scuba diving. Examples are Santander, Sumilon, Moalboal and Malapascua. The area around Cebu is most well known for its sightings of whalesharks, thresher sharks, manta rays, whales and dolphins. Currently, Cebu Pacific plys its international routes to Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok and Hong Kong with its new Airbus A320 and A319.

The new Airbus A320

Cebu Pacific is aggressively expanding its domestic and regional operations. This signifies the airline’s commitment to further develop the tourism industry and encourage more Filipinos to fly.

The airline resumed its Manila-Singapore service last August 31 and also started flying to Laoag in June, Dipolog in July and Legaspi in August.

Now in its 11th year, CEB has the youngest fleet in the Philippines as it operates 11 brand new Airbus aircraft for its domestic and regional routes. The airline pioneered low fares in the country and continues to set the standards for airline innovation in the local aviation industry.

Manado Escape

noreply@blogger.com (dragondiver) — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 16:40:00 +0000

It has been a long while since I updated this blog..... The month of September 2006 is an unauspiscious month for me. I had been busy recently for 3 full weeks due to National Service recall for the IMF/World Bank deployment @ the old PDF Base beside Suntec City. Everyday was a hectic 12-15 hours of shift work with practically no off days. I got my car rammed up against the central divider along PIE and then my old trusty computer finally failed me. I just got the desktop back after spending $270+ for repair and upgrade @ Sim Lim. The car repair cost me $750 damn! Well $1000 just flew off like that. Phew! It was finally over....

Today is my first official day off since the 5th of sept and I practically slept the whole day off just to replenish the lost energy... I've returned to work and was informed that I had to claim all the PH and leave before the end of this year.... I got 9 days to clear so I thought might as well just getaway next month for a good diving trip. I'm in the midst of planning and sourcing out cheap( and good) resorts around Manado and Lembeh Straits. I've got Michelle to go with me and hoo she fast and far more enthusiatic than I am! She already got her leave approved and she practically did all the leg work of emailing the resorts for us.

We are more or less confirmed for this trip of 5 days 4 nights from the 14th to the 18th October 2006. Barracuda resort in Manado is offering a seasonal diving package of 5 days 4 nights for just USD $255. It was published in Asian Divers Magazine as 6 days 5 nights and the resort claimed it's an erratum so they are giving us a discount off the USD $255 for their mistake. The package includes 3 boat dives per day, full board meal plan, airport transfers and accomodation in A/C twin sharing rooms with attached toilets. Barracuda resort also do Day trips to Lembeh straits, the muck diving capital of the world which is just 2 hours drive away. We will most likely be doing 4/5 dives per day intensively at additional cost if circumstances allow.... Due to the September NATAS, Silkair is offering promotional return flights to Manado's Sam Ratulangi Airport @ $301 SGD inclusive of airport taxes. Terms and conditions are: Min. 2 persons to go, travel by 31st December 2006 and flights have to be booked before the 4th of October 2006.

I've calculated the whole deal to dive Manado and Lembeh 5 days 4 nights, it'll cost a total of about $800 SGD(in excess). Sounds like a good deal to me(Considering Manado is still in full fledging season for diving with excellent visibility and proliferation of marine life until Nov)... Now to make this tropical escape a reality i'm gonna gather more Khakis to go.... maybe it'll be cheaper!

Memories shared my way....

noreply@blogger.com (dragondiver) — Sun, 06 Aug 2006 18:46:00 +0000

My Photos will be hosted by "myphotoalbum" from now..... I've decided that shutterfly is an unfriendly photohost because it converts all my pictures to windows bitmap(.bmp) format. When viewers try to download photos, it's an enormously large file.

"Myphotoalbum" uses a new php interface which allows more flexibilty in uploading and downloading. Users can download my original full resolution pics in jpeg(now that i'm a club member heh) . It has alot more features and allows better and well organised album format. Users can still view the pics in a slideshow or thumbnails and are able to comment/vote the pics freely. As for the administrator(me), it gives me alot more interesting themes and options to spice up the look of my album. It also enables me to hide or selectively lock albums/pics from being downloaded. The best part is it gives me bandwidth to upload unlimited photos and videosss.

Check out the new look and feel of my photo album if you guys have the time! Cheers!

Operation Seahorse @ Sudong Wreck

noreply@blogger.com (dragondiver) — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 18:52:00 +0000

Sunday, 30 July 2006

Finally got to dive the infamous wreck in the southern islands since the last unsuccessful attempt at this site. Initially, our spirits were super drenched to the core along with the weather. Judging from the initial conditions, we( especially Hanyong, Kat, Issac and I) thought it's going to be another wretched dive at the wreck. Huge nimbus storm clouds darkened the skies, spewed rain over the horizon and encouraged strong, chilling gale to churn the seas in an upheaval of unrest. I sent my prayers for a better experience this time and the heavens miraculously answered them. As soon as we reached the mooring buoy marking the wreck, the sun tore apart the clouds to send us its warmest smile, taming the waters into a state of tranquil.

Juvenile Golden Travelly darting around its temporary sargassum home

Issac and I were the 1st buddy pair onboard Southern Comfort to enter the water. We waited for Debby and Lee wen at the buoy. We descended along the mooring line. Just a few meters below the surface, Debby and I found this cute juvenile Golden Travelly seeking shelter at a patch of sargassum growing along the line. To my delight, just when we hit the wreck of the steel barge at about 6m, I chanced upon a colourful Siboga Cuthona -- a Nudibranch of the family Tergipedidae that feeds on Hydroids. The wreck was overgrown with soft sponges, colourful seafans, seagrasses and other corals. The sandy bottom of the wreck at about 10-15m was full of sea whips, hydroidsss(ouch!! got stung all over my knees), criniods and Iconaster Seastar. It is interesting to see the prolific marine life thriving on and around the wreck. The wreck of the steel barge is full of holes on its side and there are alot of sharp metal pipes and rusty wires around her Bow. The holes bored into her provided good refuge for fishes like an Angel fish and catfish that Issac saw. We were instructed not to penetrate the wreck as it is too dangerous. The water was calm with little or no current and visibility was around 3 to 4m. We also saw a Blue-spotted stingray, white juvenile blue dragon and a humongous polyclad Flatworm.

Enormous Spotted Black Flatworm (Acanthozoon sp.)

Left:.........Grrrrrr.......an angry and disturbed Blue-spotted Fantail Stingray, Taeniura lymma was peering out of its den to check out the intruders....
Right:Iconaster longimanus is a seastar found commonly in Singapore waters but rare anywhere else in the world.

We sun-tanned, relaxed with a cup of milo and shared our experience during the surface interval. Debby came face off with a school of yellowtail Barracudas literally and Kat spotted a tiny winny shrimp. The thing that got all of us excited was Ivy's experience with a Seahorse!

A pair of Cuthona sibogae feeding on a Hydroid

So it was Operation Seahorse for the second dive. We descended along the line again and yes the GT was still there at its seagrass home. Issac and I deviated from Debby and Lee wen from the start. It was getting a bit darker and my damn torch died on me again.... There was no luck finding the seahorse and I could find nothing due to my mask's repeated fogging. Saw the enormous Flatworm again(can't possibly miss that) and only managed to find a pair of Black margined Glossodoris when we strayed out from the wreck along bottom. It seemed Lady Luck favoured all except Issac and I 'cos ALL of them saw the Tigertail Seahorse. Debby even got a video of it! Heard Hanyong and company were hogging the little guy's attention for a good 20-30 mins such that Debby and Lee wen have to queue in the line for pictures. The seahorse was definitely a star for the day!

Macro shot of the Glossodoris atromarginata

There were 2 of these Black-margined Glossodoris

Sunset over Pulau Sudong

Leaving the wreck for another day... Port Beacon marking Sudong Wreck with Pulau Salu in a distance

See Debby's Hantu Bloggers Site for her Video on the Tigertail Seahorse here

Here's a few pictures of the Tigertail Seahorse(Hippocampus comes) taken by Hanyong:

....and by Ivy.....