Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Other pictures of critters I saw in Lembeh(2009)




Blenny hides in bottle












Snake Eel














Flying Gurnard




Sunday, December 27, 2009

Lembeh 09 - Diving Trip

For our 2009 Christmas Holiday, we are going to Lembeh AGAIN, but this time, with my granny!!! Me and my sister were happy when our parents told us. I think, Lembeh is the BEST diving place I've ever been to. Why? Because Lembeh keeps the starnge and unique critters!
Since I'm a JOW diver now, I can explore the critters at 12m deep!!! :)
I was really excited to dive in Lembeh, again, and this time, I'm diving up to 12m :) YAY

For this holiday, we are not staying at Two Fish Diver again, because it's full. Instead,we're going to KBR (Kungkungan Bay Resort). I have to say, this resort was the best one I've ever been to. I'm going to start my diving(13/12/09) after the day I came to KBR.

My sister can dive up to 21m and she doesn't want to stay at 12m. So she's diving with my mum(with a guide), and I'm diving with my dad(with a guide too).

Day 1 Dive 1-Makawide 2
In Makawide 2, me and my dad saw a lot of stuff. First of all, we
saw tons of BCF (Bangai Cardinal Fish). Then, we saw 1 or 2 Flounder, and I think it's a Peacock Flounder. We also saw Nudis, different kinds. Not just that, we found 1 or 2 of juv. Catfish, they are cute, but they also have spiky 'whiskers'. On the way, we saw this fish that looks like either Scorpionfish, or Stonefish. And at the end of our dive, we saw this really cute Cuttlefish!
I saw a lot more critters, but they are common ones(excluding Clownfish). Also I think I saw an eel.

Dive 2-Tandu Rusa
This is a really cool dive site, because there is like so many critters. Me and my dad saw BCF (very common in Lembeh), Pufferfish, Snake Eel, but only the head popped out, Porcelain Crab, Clown Fish, Mantis Shrimp, a few Nudis, 2 tiny Emperor Shrimps on Sea Cucumber, Scorpion fish, Pipe fish, and loads more!!! Awesome dive :)

Dive 3-Nudi Falls
Favourite of all. Best dive ever. Guess why? Because we saw groups BCF, 1 or 2 Flounders,
Scorpion fish, Clown fish, Porcupine fish, a few Wasp fish, a few Sexy Shrimp(this shrimp wiggles
its butt), a Sea Cucumber, this shrimp that camouflage it self on a greenish black Feather Star, 2 PIGMY SEA HORSE & an ELECTRIC CLAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was crazy when I saw both of
the creatures.
And I was really amazed by how AWESOME it was. How lucky was I? HUH? :)

Day 2 Dive 1-Nudi Retreat
Nudi Falls and Nudi Retreat are two of my favourite dive sites!
That's because it's all about Nudis, and I love Nudis! But it doesn't mean there's nothing else(apart from corals). We saw Clown Fish, Flabellina, BCF, wiggly wobbly juv Sweetlip, Scorpion fish, Puffer fish, Pipe fish, Leaf Scorpion fish, Mantis Shrimp and tons more!

Dive 2-Hair Ball 2
At this dive site, I saw BCF, 1 or 2 Flounder, a few Nudis, Frog fish, Lion fish, Scorpion fish, this really HUGE shell, Clark's Anemone fish, and it's egg, and loads more!
About the Anemone fish eggs, I thought they were these round
and red corals, and I was going to find out by poking it, a bit. I
never knew that it was eggs, and the fishes are trying to guard it
and I thought that they were just little mean fishes. So when I lightly poked it, one of the big anemone fish, bit me on my hand!!!
Ouch! Never underestimate these little fish, just because they have little teeth, doesn't mean that it won't hurt if you get bitten, you know. Luckily it wasn't bleeding, PHEW!

Dive 3-Jahir 2
This was an interesting dive. We saw Nudis, BCF, Clown fish, a
Mantis Shrimp, quite a lot of Porcupine fish, Lion fish and this beautiful Flying Gurnard. Not just that, we saw this GIANT yellow Frog fish, and guess what it did, it extended it's mouth, which was so cool! We also saw either a female or juv Eel, that was fed by the
guide with live Anchovies I think. He fed the Eel by making the little fish go near to the Eel, then SWOOP! The Eel took one of the fish into its hole, with its mouth.

Day 3 Dive 1-California Dreaming
From KBR to this dive site, using a boat, took 12 mins. People say
this is a beautiful dive site, and I hope they are right. And they were. The corals here was healthy, although there was a little bit of current, but it was gorgeous. We saw lots of BCF, a Mantis Shrimp, Nudi Eggs, tons of Nudis, juv Eel, Porcelain Crab, groups of Cat
fish, Clown fish, a few little crabs and a dozen more. I have to say, this was a 'colourful' dive! :)

Dive 2-Jahir 1
We didn't see much unique critters on this dive, but it was still fab!
:) Like usual, we saw BCF, 1 or 2 Wasp fish, groups of Cat fish, a Porcelain Crab that was bitten (no marks) by a Clark's Anemone
fish, Cow fish and more!

Dive 3-Tanjung Kubur
Kubur means grave and there is a grave yard next to this dive site. When there's a grave yard next to something, it doesn't mean it'll be all scary, maybe a bit, but not near a dive site, because this site just hit the spot! I saw BCF(of course), Mantis Shrimp, 2 Scorpion fish, I think, an Eel, Clown fish, and guess what we saw under these dead corals stacked up??? A Mandarin fish!!!!!!!! I screamed when I saw it, because it's my first time seeing a Mandarin fish. Even though it just stopped for a second and then it dashed away, it was still AWESOME!!!

Dive 4-Mandarin Dive - Tanjung Kusu-Kusu
This is the first time for me, to dive 4 times in a day. And the fourth dive is a Mandarin dive,
which is evening!!!! At the Mandarin dive, apart from the obvious, we saw BCF, 1 or 2 Nudis, 2 Ghost Pipefish, this weird Cardinal fish and other common fish.
There is 2 big corals, and inside it is the Mandarin fish, sleeping. We have to wait patiently until it is the right time. It was awesome. We saw some of the Mandarin fish fighting and marrying,
that's when they go together up until the right moment, then SWOOP, they zoom down! :)

Day 4 Dive 1- Kapal Indah
This is suppose to be a wreck dive, but the wreck is at 21m and
that's too deep for me, so I just stayed at 12-15m. At that area, we saw BCF, Mantis Shrimp, Nudis,Crocodile fish, which I found, 1 or 2 Scorpion fish, an Eel(I think) and just at the end of the dive, near a Feather Star, the guide found a Ghost Pipe fish!!!

Dive 2-Magic Crack
We were suppose to go to Nudi Retreat 2, but there's already 10 people diving. So we went to Magic Crack. This place sounds good, and it was good. When we're under, we saw BCF, this really cute fish in a bottle(!!!), Goby and Shrimp, groups of Cat fish, Lion fish, Scorpion fish, these little Shrimp on a Cushion Star, Flounder, a
few Nudis and other common fish.

Dive 3-Hair Ball 2
I have no clue why this site is called Hair Ball, but let me tell you, I
haven't seen any hair balls in the ocean, EVER, especially when I'm diving. But I did see loads of groups of BCF, a few Puffer fish and Porcupine fish, an awesome Octopus, a family of Sexy Shrimps on Anemones, with Clown fish(of course), 1 or 2 groups of juv Cat fish and Flounder, Nudis, 2 Mantis Shrimps and other common fish.

Day 5
I can't believe it's already the last day:( Everytime I'm enjoying something, it somehow feels like it finished so quickly:( It's really
annoying. But luckily, today was an AWESOME day!

Dive 1-Batu Merah
Batu means stone, merah means red then Batu Merah means Red Stone, but I didn't see any. Although, I think people call this site Batu Merah, because the soil of the cliff next to the dive site, is red.
In Batu Merah, we saw BCF, Mantis Shrimp, Nudis, pink Nudi Eggs, X-mas Tree Worms, Giant Boring Clam, a curled up Thorn Sea Star, Sexy Shrimp, Clown fish and other common fish.

Dive 2-Batu Kapal(Makawide)
This place seems interesting, and it was. In Batu Kapal, me and my dad, saw BCF, this really cute Fish, in a bottle, Flounders, Nudis, Sexy Shrimp on Anemone with Clown fish, Lion fish, Snake Eel, Wasp fish and Banded Sea Snake, which was swimming around. W e also saw this Eel with a reddish pinkish white-ish yellow head,
and I searched in this fish book, and I think it might be the Reptilian Snake Eel. We also saw tiny shrimps on Star fish.

Dive 3-T.K.3
Last day, last dive:( Although, I was 100% sure that the last dive would be the best, maybe
without Pigmy Sea Horse, and critters like that, but the only dive I really, really enjoyed.
In this dive we saw a lot of critters! More than the other dives:) We saw a Peacock Flounder, Leaf Scorpion fish, BCF, 2 File fish, Nudis, Ambon Scorpion fish, other types of Scorpion fish,a Crab that's carrying something-that looks like a coral, 2 Orang-Utan Crabs, Puffer fish, Mantis Shrimp, Hump-Back Scorpion fish, cute
fish in a bottle, Black Saddle Snake Eel, big Hernit Crab and a gazillion more!!!
See what I mean-the best always comes last:(
But nevermind about that now. I can't change anything. It was a good dive, and that's what I need!:)

At the end of some of the dives, I tried to make bubble donuts(!!!) , it was fun :), but most bubbles didn't turned out like a donut!


Friday, December 25, 2009

Lembeh 09 - Flight Delayed

We were suppose to go back to Singapore, on Saturday and go back to Brunei on Sunday. But unfortunately, it was raining, and no flights can land except one, Merpati. That wasn't our flight though, it was Silk Air. Anyway, we had to stay in Manado for one more night. And guess where we're staying? The same hotel as yesterday, Quality Hotel! Me and my family were laughing when we heard where we were staying. At least it's free!!!

Tomorrow, Our flight to Singapore was suppose to be at 2 o'clock, but there wasn't any Silk Air flight on Sunday, so we had to spend one more night in Manado. Instead of sleeping around in the room and watch TV, we explored the island and had a great time! So the following are the places of where we went on Sunday:

Danau Tondano (danau means lake in Indonesia)
Tomohon-Flower City
Kawang Koan-Peanut Farm
Lahendong-Power Plant
Desa Pulutan(desa means village in Indonesia)
Danau Linow
Bukit Kasih(bukit means hill in Indonesia)

What we saw:

Mt. Lokon - Active
Mt. Klabat
Sulphur-Heat from underground that goes through special rocks, which makes smelly smoke.

Tomohon-Flower City
This is a beautiful place. It's up a mountain and
there are loads of gorgeous flowers. There was an amphitheater(but we didn't go there) and a church. We didn't stayed there too long though. But it was really cool. It was like heaven of flowers (except that they need to grow a lot more flowers). But still, it was amazing!
After going to this place, we were hungry, so we went to a lake called Danau Tondano...

Desa Pulutan-Danau Tondano
This is a lake. There is a restaurant just at the
side. We had lunch there, and it was delicious! Me and my sister ate LOADS of fried fresh water crayfish, the other type of crayfish-like shrimps. We also ate fried fresh water fish. It was good too. After we finished eating the fresh water crayfish, we stacked the skin and made a mountain of
crayfish skin!!! It was funny! :)

We were full, and it started to rain, again, so we continued exploring this island.
Next, wer're going to Danau Linow.

Danau Linow
Danau Linow is known to be colourful. Not colourful like a rainbow, but it is said that the colour of the lake changes from blue to green and vice versa. But it didn't really change much. But it's stillcool though:) Near Danau Linow, there was sulpher and it was super-duper STINKY!!!
We didn't stay too long in Danau Linow, because the park was closed. And it was muddy!!!
BLECH :(

After going to Danau Linow, we are going to Bukit Kasih. On the way to Bukit Kasih, we passed
through a village called Desa Pulutan(desa-village), and we passed a Peanut Farm called Kawang Koang, and my mum bought these delicious nuts!

Bukit Kasih
Bukit means hill and kasih means love, which means this place is
called Love Hill. This hill has a very weird name, but on it, is this tall statue thing that represents the religions.
Me and my sister needed the toilet, and since it was raining, we had to rent an umbrella. When we rent one, our parents said that we're allowed to go anywhere, as long as it's close by. After going to the toilet, we went to the statue thing and read what ever it said on the statue thing. After that we went to see this smoke thing, which was sulphur. It was quite cold outside, so we went over the sulphur to get warmer, but unfortunately, it was STINKY!!!!!!!! We couldn't stand much of the smell so we left that area. Me and my sister were hungry and we bought each a really, really warm corn! It tasted fresh and delicious! :)

After Going to Bukit Kasih, unfortunately we are going back to our hotel:( On the way back, we passed through Lahendong, which was a geothermal power station! Awesome right!

This journey begun because of rain and no flight :)
.