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So just because I haven’t blogged, it doesn’t mean that nothing has been happening here. First things first, August ended!! Wow, again the months go by so quickly. It was a great month, if a little wet. Masses to see underwater, as you can see from the August Critter chart below. Plenty of Frogfish, Ghost Pipefish, Seahorses, Nudis (of course), Ribbon Eels, Tiger Shrimp, Flamboyant Cuttlefish, Octopuses all all sorts, Sea Moths, Ambons, Bumblebee Shrimp and so much more.For me August has been great for the beautiful juvenile Pinnate Spadefish (Batfish). It is such a lovely fish, jet black with it’s bright orange border..really stunning (video above)

As so many guest here find out, Lembeh just has so much to offer. You never know what you’re going to see when you go out. You know you’ll see some great things, but there is always a wonderful sense of anticipation as to what exactly it will be…

This week was a good example..we were diving at Tandu Rusa, a great muck site in front of a working boat yard in a small village nearby. At first glance you wouldn’t really believe it was a dive site. But we always get good critters there, Seahorses, deep red Emperor Shrimp, Waspfish, Double-Ended Pipefish, Frogfish, Octopus…. At the end of the dive, the guides suddenly found a Peacock Mantis Shrimp…Ok, always nice, especially as this one was out of it’s tunnel and seemed unafraid.

The Peacock Mantis Shrimp are big Mantis and, as the name would suggest, very brightly colored. They are also reputed to have the fastest punch of any living animal, over 50mph. They are a type of ‘smashing’ mantis, and repeatedly hammer their prey (fellow crustaceans) until they get access to the soft tissue inside (their ‘cousins’. the ‘spearing’ Mantis spears their prey).

This lovely Mantis we had found turned out to be an expectant mother!! She had a huge clutch of eggs firmly grasped in multiple legs. A wonderful sight to see, completely unexpected and another dive in Lembeh….below is the video I took of her…

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The rest of the week has been good too. We’ve seen a Blue-Ring, Boxing Crabs, Lembeh Pygmy Seadragons, Lembeh Velvetfish, Tiger Shrimp, Bumblebee Shrimp, Mimic, Coconut, Reef and Long Arm Octopus, Bob-Tailed Squid, Frogfish of all types, Flamboyant Cuttlefish, Sea Spiders, juvenile Pinnate Batfish, juvenile Zebra Batfish, Sea Snakes, Sea Moths, Ambon Scorpionfish, nudis everywhere, Ribbon Eels, lots of Snowflake Eels, Decorator Crabs, giant Lobster, Mandarin fish, Leaf Scorpionfish, Waspfish (Cockatoo, Long-spine), Seahorses (normal and pygmy), Ghost Pipefish, Electric Clams….oh, it’s been good to be back in the water after a week off…

Above our some of my photos form this week. Not very good, as the are from my video….

….better have some better ones now. As August is over, I get to choose my three favorite photos that Barb took. Always a very difficult choice, but for this month…

In 3rd place:-

Couldn’t resist putting a photo of me in (oh, and yes, there’s a sea snake too). This was taken with Barb’s new dome port for her G11, on the Mawali Wreck, the 75m Japanese wreck, scuttled in 1943.

In 2nd place:-

Two beautiful orange Gobies, using an old bottle for their home. Lovely symmetry and wonderful color.

And my fav photo from August, in 1st place:-

I just love this photos. The texture of the sea cucumber looks unreal, it could be plastic, or even chocolate drops…. The tiny red goby looks almost out of place, perched on a non-red background. A wonderful photo…

So thanks to all our lovely guests, we’ve had a great time. It seems almost like home, with lots of divers from the UK visiting. We’ve also had guests from Japan, Poland and Germany….

And finally, though I don’t have any of Barb’s underwater photos this week, I do have some photos from our week off. We went up to the highlands, about 90 minutes from here, to a place called Tomohon, the City of Flowers. It was a lovely place to get away, the hotel had amazing gardens, wonderful flowers and an incredible view..enjoy the photos..click on the strip below and it will open the slideshow in a new windows..

Our Week Off VIEW SLIDE SHOW

Two of the least dived sites we have here in Lembeh are our two wrecks. Both are Japanese freighters and both were sunk in World War II, one, the Kapul Indah, was hit by an American bomb, the other, the Mawali, scuttled. Both are in about 100ft (30m) of water and both are covered in hard and soft coral, as you can imagine after over 60 years underwater.

Now the main reason we don’t dive them too much is that divers just don’t want to ‘do a wreck’ in Lembeh. “We’re here to do the muck”” they say…”I can do a wreck anywhere in the world..” Well, yes, you can dive wrecks in other places, but you can only dive a wreck in Lembeh if that wreck is in Lembeh. We have many different types of substrate in Lembeh, and not all our dive sites are ‘muck’. Different sorts of critters live on different dive sites, we we dive black sand (muck), white sand, rubble, coral sites, etc and so diving the wrecks in just another substrate with critters…

So this week we still had Barb’s sister and her husband diving and we also had some friends form Singapore, so it was a perfect opportunity to dive the Mawali, the largest of the two diveable wrecks in Lembeh. The Mawali is quite a large boat, laying on her port side in 100ft (30m) of water. She is about 70m long. You descend down a line that’s attached to her side and the top is about 55ft (16m) under the surface. As she is laying on her side, you descend on the side of the hull, which is now covered with hard coral, soft coral and sponges, with many reef fish and nudibranchs abounding. You keep on descending, going down to the bottom on the hull side. There are sea fans, of course, and on one sea fan there were 6 pink Bargabanti Pygmy Seahorses. It is a big boat and you slowly swim around the sea floor, looking up at the huge hull above you….

When you get around to the side, which used to be the deck and holds, you again are confronted with wonderful soft coral whips and sponges growing off the wreck. There are the large holds which are open and easily and safely entered, enabling you to look out at the divers on the outside. Everywhere there are nudibranchs. There is plenty of superstructure creating wonderful shapes and, when at the stern, the massive propeller is still in place, covered in coral and it must be some 15ft (5m) in diameter….once back on the top we found a juvenile Pinnate Batfish hanging out in a hard coral growth and then a Banded Sea Krait swam unconcernedly though us….It is a great dive and one I would recommend, as it is another wonderful Lembeh dive…

The rest of the week saw several more juvenile Pinnate Batfish, so this must be a good time of the year for them. We’ve also seen more juvenile Zebra Baitfish, plenty of Flamboyant Cuttlefish, many different types of Seahorses, Pipefish and Pipehorses. We found another site with Lembeh Pygmy Seadragons. And we’ve seen many Ornate Ghost Pipefish, some Robust, including one with a Isopod attached to it’s side, something we didn’t know was possible… Plenty of Frogfish are around, with Hairy’s now being found on a few sites, plenty of Painted Frogfish. Giant’s and Warty’s making an occasional appearance.

The crustaceans, as ever, are well represented, with Tiger Shrimp, Zebra Crabs, Tozeuma Shrimp, Plumed Rock Shrimp, Smashing and Spearing Mantis Shrimp, Bumblebee Shrimp, Boxing Crabs, Crinoid Shrimp, Commensual Shrimp,many different types of Cleaner Shrimp and another great find from Barb, a Porcelain Crab with eggs….

We’ve seen many Pegasus Sea Moths. Plenty of different scorpionfish, including the Ambon. Dragonet’s of differing sizes..and lots of octopuses, including Mimics, Wonderpuses, Coconut, Long Arm and a Hairy Octopus too. And well done Horin for finding another Bobbitt Worm on a night dive.

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Last but not least, it was a good week for nudis, as you can see in this weeks video. We saw great great action with Halgerda batangas mating, some Ceratosoma laying eggs, some extended mouth gymnastics (you’ll have to watch the video to see what I mean) and some weird nudis making appearances, including one I had seen before, the Thecacera picta and my favorite, the purple-tipped Janolus…

Thanks to all our great guests from the UK, the States, Italy, Spain, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and Japan, it’s been a great week…..

Enjoy Barb’s photos this week…

Barb’s Weekly Photos VIEW SLIDE SHOW

One of the many things that makes Lembeh such a fascinating destination is the amount of great critter behavior that you get to watch. Not only do you see stuff swimming/crawling around you, you also get to see a lot of wonderful interaction and behavior, whether you are watching a Flamboyant Cuttlefish hunt or a Saddle Back Anemone Fish cleaning and oxygenating it’s eggs. I was on a dive this week that was a perfect example…

We had been having a great dive, as usual, and seen two Mimic Octopus together, a Flamboyant Cuttlefish eating, a family of three Ornate Ghost Pipefish, Ambon Scorpionfish, Halimeda Crab and we were slowly fining up the sandy slope towards the mooring.. Joe (one of our Dive Guides) gave a little tap on his tank and pointed at something in the sand..I swam over and saw what looked like one transparent crab standing over what I called a Sponge Leg Crab (can’t find it in the books, though that’s just because the Crustacean book aren’t that good) and eating it. The crab was picking bits of the ‘defeated’ crab and shoving the pieces in it’s mouth, at least that’s what it look like. It was interesting, so I started to film it from a few different angles…..

Later, back on land, I was showing Barb the clip of crab easting crab. It was immediately obvious that I had not seen crab cannibalism, but filmed something none of us, Guides included, have seen before. Crabs, as we all know, shed their ‘skins’ to allow them to grow. A lot of crabs here ‘decorate’ their bodies with bits of sand, sponge, algae, usually in a pretty haphazard way, so they look like a small rock with stuff growing on it. The ‘Sponge Leg Crab’ looks like it has smooth sponge on it and is usually red though can be yellow too. The beginning bit on the video below shows one scampering around. What I had actually filmed was one of these crabs that had recently shed it’s skin and was very carefully and methodically pulling small pieces of sponge from it’s old skin and then putting those bits in it’s mouth parts, covering the sponge bits in, presumably, saliva then sticking the bits on it’s new skin!! It is fascinating to watch and we all, including Joe and all the other Dive Guides, were amazed to find out how these crabs got their outer layer. The macro critters are truly wonderful to watch……

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The other dives this week have been great. For me the highlights have been seeing a few critters that I hadn’t seen yet. It was great to finally see the Ocellated Frogfish, which is unique to Lembeh. I saw, again for the first time, a Mushroom Coral Pipefish, a Signal Goby, a Plumed Rock Shrimp and some lovely Cowries gliding over the sand. We saw more beautiful juvenile Pinnate and Zebra Batfish on several different dive sites, We saw some more Lembeh Pygmy Pipedragons, plenty of Painted, Giant, Hairy and Warty Frogfish. We saw plenty of Mimics, Wonderpuses, Long Arm and Coconut Octopuses. We saw more Ambon, Devil, Demon, Raggy, Flasher, Dwarf and Leaf Scorpionfish. Many great crustacean’s with Tiger Shrimp, Tozeuma Shrimp, Xeno Crabs, Porcelain Crabs, Bumblebee Shrimp, many different types of Cleaner and Crinoid Shrimps…..and, of course, Seahorses, Pygmy Seahorses, Pipefish, Winged Pipefish, Pygmy Pipehorses and Ghost Pipefish…another week’s great diving…

Many thanks for all our lovely guests this week. Our Venezuelan guest was still here, more divers from Spain, Colombia, the UK, the States, Turkey, France, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong…

And finally this week, a very sad farewell to our lovely friends from the Okeanos, a NOAA research vessel that has spent the last two months in northern Sulawesi, filming in HD the uncharted ocean floor, from around 1500m to 4000m!! We had a great time with all of you and enjoyed the video of what you found down there immensely. When I have a faster internet connection, I’ll upload it and share it with our readers…safe sailing and see you angina next year!!!!

Check out Barb’s weekly photos. Some really great shots this week. She has a new wide angle lens, so the first few can now be seen….

Barb’s Fab Photos VIEW SLIDE SHOW

This week Barb’s sister arrived from OZ for a visit. Like everyone on their first trip to Lembeh (or their second or third..) she was very excited. Having seen the photos, the videos, having heard us go on about what an amazing place it is too dive and how great the Dive Guides are at finding all the hidden critters, Barb and I hoped that it was all going to meet expectations…

So, first dive, off to the dive site, we all get ready, make our descent, lots of anticipation as to what we are going to see…we start swimming around, following Jony and Jeff, the two guides…Barb is just in front of Jo (her sister) looking around, when she see’s her sister gesturing for her to come over, pointing at something in the muck, making the ‘what’s this’ gesture with her hands….one minute into the dive and what had Jo found all by herself?…a Mimic Octopus!!!! Fantastic, and not a bad way to start your first Lembeh critter hunt!!

And the dive just got better..after the Mimic we saw a juvenile Zebra Spadefish, a Long Snout Seahorse, a juvenile orange-phase Scorpionfish, Skeleton Ghost Shrimps, a lovely big female Yellow Ribbon Eel, two Cockatoo Waspfish, a Banded Sea Krait, three morays tucked together in one hole, a lovely Leaf Scorpionfish and finally a beautiful juvenile Painted Frogfish, all black with yellow spots…..not bad for your first Lembeh experience…once again the Lembeh smile, as it so often is, was plastered on all our faces when we were back on the boat.

All the other dives were great too. Our weekly sightings include seeing three Blue Rings on one dive, two of them sitting on top of each other!!. we’ve seen more Mimic’s, Wonderpuses, Long Arm Octopus, Coconut Octopus and the elusive Hairy Octopus. Great Frogfish this week with Hairy’s, Painted, Giant, Warty and even the Ocellated Frogfish, which is unique to Lembeh. Waspfish, Ambon Scorpionfish, Leaf Scorpionfish, Spiny Devilfish, Demon Scorpionfish and Flasher Scorpionfish. Tiger Shrimp are still around, as is the Bumblebee Shrimp (see video below). Xeno Crabs, Crinoid Shrimps, Coral Shrimps, Orangutan Crabs, Zebra Crabs, Boxing Crabs, Squat Lobsters, Hairy Squat Lobsters, Slipper Lobsters and Commensual Shrimps have all been seen. The Solar-Powered Nudi was out and about, along with many other types of nudi. Three types of Ghost Pipefish, the Ornate, Halimeda and Robust. More Dragon Sea Moths, lots of Flamboyant Cuttlefish, Pygmy Seahorses, Pygmy Pontohi Seahorses, Winged Pipefish, Cockatoo Flounder…the list goes on….All in all another fabulous week in Lembeh.

This week’s video is of another weird and wonderful crustacean. There are so many different types and crab and shrimp here, so many different shapes and colors. The Bumblebee Shrimp seen here is another shrimp that likes to live in a pair. These ones hang out inside a Tube Sponge complex, and it’s easy to see why they got their name..

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We’ve had a really international selection of lovely guests this week from the UK, the States, Spain, Japan, France, Italy, Venezuela, Germany, and Turkey. Thanks for coming and we hope to see you again.

Finally, as ever, click the photos at the top or bottom of this blog to enjoy Barb’s photos from this week..

Barb’s Weekly Photos VIEW SLIDE SHOW

Hard to believe, but July has past us by….the weeks and months here fly by…

July was a great month for diving. At the beginning of June I started asking the Dive Guides to let me know a few of the critters they saw on every dive. Over 80 different sorts of creature were reported. I started off  with the same list of critters for July and now have nearly 100 critters!! I think the Guides have been enjoying looking up the stuff they’ve been seeing underwater in our reference books and giving them names. So our most ‘common’ sightings were Seahorses, Ghost Pipefish (the Ornate in particular), Frogfish in all forms, Dragon Sea Moths, Flamboyant Cuttlefish and many many different type of nudibranch. If you click on the ‘Critter Sightings’ graph it will open up bigger in a new window so you can study it..

My highlight was, I think, the Devil Rays, as they were just so unexpected. The Guides have had a great month, finding the Lembeh Velvetfish, Bobbitt Worms on night dives, many Tiger Shrimp, regular sightings Mimic Octopus and Wonderpus, tiny Skeleton Ghost Shrimp and so much more. Even as I get more used to spotting critters I am still in awe of the things they find, and from such a long way away!!

Last week we had another great set of guests from Japan, Austria, Germany, France, Australia, the UK, Spain, Italy, Holland and Hong Kong. We saw some great pipefish, with the strangely shaped Winged Pipefish and the strangely named Double End Pipefish being spotted. We’ve seen more Stargazers, Stonefish, Ambon Scorpionfish, including some very hairy ones, Devilfish, Flamboyant, Giant and Pygmy Cuttlefish, many different Octopuses, Saron Shrimp, Leaf Scorpionfish…lots and lots of nudis…just great diving…

So, as July has past, I now get to choose my three favorite photos that Barb took. She had bronchitis for the first couple of weeks, but has fully recovered and is happily snapping away again, as you can see from this week photos (click the strips at the top and bottom of this blog). I got some help in deciding this week from Liberty, my Dive Supervisor…

In 3rd place (and Liberty’s favorite), a tiny Pygmy Cuttlefish hiding in some soft coral. Lovely colors…

In second place is this wonderfully colored Winged Pipefish. These Pipefish have 8 to 10 pairs of skin flaps on their backs. This one also has a variety of colors all over it’s body. The coral behind also adds to the infusion of subtle colors (You can see more of this Pipefish in the weekly photos)

And my favorite photo this month was of a Bargibanti Pygmy Seahorse. This one was taken on the same dive I saw the two Devil Rays on. The Pygmy is perfectly highlighted on the Sea Fan. And, as with all Barb’s photos, this was taken with her Canon G11, so no fancy DSLR and lens (she gets that in a few weeks….)

And finally, my video of the week is of one of my very favorite juvenile fish, the juvenile Pinnate Spadefish (or, as many of you would call it, a Batfish). This one was only about 3cm (1 inch) from top to bottom and was absolutely beautiful. I had never seen one this small before. They madly flutter about, pretending to be a poisonous swimming Flatworms. They are very difficult to get close to, but I was lucky enough to get some very nice film of him.

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Click below for Barb’s Weekly Photos

Barb’s Fab Photos VIEW SLIDE SHOW

This morning we set out for our first dive. I had decided on a dive site called Goby A Crab, as I’d only been there once before and really enjoyed it. It has good sand, good rubble and good soft corals and sponges, with a lot of reef life. It’s down towards the south tip of Lembeh Island and needs to be high or low tide to dive it, otherwise there is a big current.

The dive started as normal..lots of squid eggs on the mooring (you could just about make out the unborn squid in their translucent eggs sacks), a couple of small beautiful Fingered Dragonets, a Zebra Spearing Mantis Shrimp….the divers were spread out and I was idly cruising above the sand/rubble in front of everyone except Liberty (one of my Dive Supervisors). Liberty was, as always, peering at something very tiny on the bottom, when I happened to glance up and look around. Now we were down at about 24 meters, with normal Lembeh visibility, about 10 meters (30 feet) or so. Suddenly I saw a very large Spotted Eagle Ray swim above Liberty’s head…I start banging my tank frantically, trying to get his attention (I was only about 5 meters away from him). He, as usual, ignores me, and keeps peering at whatever tiny critter he’s found. Bang bang bang bang I go, pointing towards the ray and waving my arms….after what seemed like an eternity Liberty looked up and towards me and then I saw his eyes go wide…he started pointing above me and waving his arms!! I looked up and there was a huge Devil Ray, about 8 or 9 feet (3 meters or so) wing-tip to wing-tip!!!!! And then there was another!! And two Spotted Eagle Rays!!! I couldn’t believe my eyes, and I don’t think Liberty could either!! It was the first (and second) Devil Ray I have ever seen, and Lembeh would have been the last place I would ever have guessed that that would have happened…..

The above two shots were some stills I lifted from the video I took, but I was about 30 meters deep, the light wasn’t great and a Devil Ray can swim a lot faster than me!!!!!!

The rest of the dive was great too. Pink Pygmy Seahorse, a juvenile Pacific Sailfin Tang, super aggressive and very lovely colored Spinecheek Anemonefish, Raggy Scorpionfish being grazed on by a school of juvenile Catfish….the glazed eyes and big Lembeh smile was definitely plastered over mine and Liberty’s faces at the end of the dive…

The rest of the week’s diving and been fantastic too. We saw three Blue Ring Octopus this week, including two in one day and two different sites!! We also saw Coconut, Mimic and Wonderpuses too. Particularly special was seeing two tiny juvenile Wonderpuses which, from the tip of one tentacle to the tip of the other, was only about 4 cms (one and a half inches) across…incredibly sweet..

Been a good week for Zebras, with Zebra Crabs, Zebra Seahorses and Zebra Mantis Shrimp. We seen a fair amount of Tiger Shrimps again. Bumble Bee shrimp are still there and we’ve found some nice big Xeno Crabs and right next to them a Pink Bargibanti Pygmy, both only 18 meters deep. We also saw the Lembeh Pygmy Pipe Dragons.

We’ve had a good week for Ghost Pipefish, with Ornates, Robust, Velvet, Halimeda and Rough Snout all being seen. Frogfish have been well represented, with Hairy, Giant, Painted and Warty all making appearances. Other notable sightings are more Flamboyant Cuttlefish, Ribbon Eels, Dragon Sea Moths, Crinoid Shrimps, Electric (disco) Clam, Stargazers, Pontohi Pygmy Seahorses, Pink Hairy Squat Lobsters, Crocodilefish, Snake Eels and two Bobbitt Worms on one night dive!!!

Dive Guide Rony had a good week..last week he found a Phantom Velvetfish, which was very exciting..this week he found what he had really been looking for, the Lembeh Velvetfish, a unique Lembeh critter, so well done Rony!!!

This week’s video is of a very bizarre nudibranch. The Solar Powered Nudi is one of the largest nudis we get, with two in this video over 20cms long. The graze on soft coral, usually a leathery soft coral called Sarcophyton. The nudis extract the zooanthellae from the soft coral then store it in their fleshly lobes that come out of their body. The use the zooanthellae to photosynthesis and harvest the energy produced, hence their name!! An amazing symbiotic relationship and another truly weird and wonderful critter from Lembeh.

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Thanks to another great bunch of people from all over the world for coming to visit. We’ve had guests from Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Turkey, Japan, the UK, Switzerland, Malaysia, Italy and France. Nice meeting all of you…and hope to see you again.

Barb’s bronchitis finally cleared up and so she managed to get back in the water yesterday. Enjoy her photos…

Barb’s Fab Week 15 Photos VIEW SLIDE SHOW

Not that I had thought a lot about it, but why are Urchins called Urchins? Well it turns out that Urchin is the old Middle English word for ‘hedgehog’. Suddenly it all becomes clear…….

We get many different types of urchin here, and one of the most striking is the Fire Urchin (Asthenosoma varium). It has bulb-tipped venomous spines, capable of inflicting intensely painful wounds on the unwary diver…it also has, occasionally, uninvited, though harmless, guests. This week’s video shows two of the most interesting, the Zebra Urchin Crab (Zebrida adamsii) and the Coleman Shrimp (Periclimenes colemanii). Both of these crustacean were seen on the same dive, on urchins about 3 meters apart.

The Zebra Urchin Crab is a little more common to see than the Coleman, and can be found on several different types of urchin. They are great little guys to see and photograph or film as they tend to stay pretty much still. They can be on urchins only a couple of meters deep, to well over 25 meters.

The Coleman Shrimp is pretty rare. The are often seen is pairs, as in the clip, with the female being the larger of the two. They too make great photographic subjects, with their banded legs and large circles on their bodies. They are usually only seen on deeper urchins, from 18 meters down to 30 meters…..it was wonderful to find them and the Zebra crab so close together…both the Zebra and the Coleman are only about 2cms long (less than an inch).

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We have had guests from all over the world this week, with divers from the States, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, France, Turkey, Japan and a honeymoon couple from the UK.

Tom and Dawn (the honeymooners) had a fantastic Mandarin dive, where as well as lots of Mandarin rumpy-pumpy they also had a Blue Ring octopus sitting on piece of coral for over 10 minutes!! Great dive!!!

Other cephalopods sightings this week have included several Mimic and Wonderpuses, more Hairy and Long Arm Octopuses and some big Veined Octopuses. We seen a lot of Flamboyant Cuttlefish and even some large mating Reef Squid…

As well as the Zebra Crab and Coleman Shrimp. we’ve had more Tiger Shrimp, Candy Crabs, Porcelain Crabs, Mantis Shrimp, Tozeuma Shrimp, Orangutan Crabs, Boxing Crabs and Xeno Crabs

Many different Ghost Pipefish again, with Velvets, Halimeda, Ornate, Robust and Rough Snouts all putting in appearances…some divers were incredibly lucky to see a Velvet Ghost Pipefish give birth!!!! Neither Barb or I were there..oh well, can’t be everywhere….

Lots of Spiny Devilfish, Devil Scorpionfish, Raggy Scorpionfish, Flasher Scorpionfish, Waspfish and a few Ambom Scorpionfish. We also saw a Stonefish early in the week. We’ve seen several different Soles, with the Margined, Carpet and Peacock Soles all being seen. We’ve seen Crocodile and Japanese Flatheads, Fingered Dragonets and Dragon (Pegasus) Sea Moths, always one of my favorites…Frogfish, as always are around, with Hairy’s, Painted, Giant and Warty. We even saw a bald Hairy Frogfish on the House Reef!! Hairy Frogfish are really a variation of the Striped Frogfish, which doesn’t have hairs. Most unusual for us. There have been lots of eels, with Ribbon Eels in all stages (juvenile, male and female), Snowflake Eels, White-eye Morays and Fimbriated…..we also saw some more Lembeh Pygmy Pipedragons…..and, last but not least, many different types of Nudibranch…

Not too many photos this week as Barb has unfortunately had bronchitis and hasn’t been able to dive…hopefully she’ll be better soon and back in the water…

See you next week…..

Barb’s Weekly Photos VIEW SLIDE SHOW

After a week away it was lovely to be back in the Strait again. Away from the hustle and bustle of Singapore City life and back to the beauty of Kungkungan Bay and the wonderful diving of Lembeh…

Had anything changed in the week we spent away? It did seem that some little things had altered. Jahir, the dive site that had been continuously throwing up Hairy Frogfish no longer seems to have any (it still has plenty of other stuff though)…but another dive site seems to have gained two new ones, so that evened itself out. We had a couple of days where the visibility was incredible!! The dive sites at the north end of Lembeh were getting 30m plus vis!!! Dive sites like Batu Merah and Aw Shucks were amazing, with the coral reefs teaming with life, butterflyfish, unicornfish, triggerfish..really lovely…

There were many critters to be seen, as always. We saw many different types of crustaceans….we saw, in no particular order, Boxer (Pom Pom) Crab, seend here on the right,Tiger Shrimp, Xeno Crabs, Zebra Crabs, Hairy Squat Lobster, Spiny Lobster, Bumblebee Shrimp, Emperor Shrimp, Skeleton Shrimp, Orangutan Crabs, Candy Crab as well as many Smashing and Spearing Mantis Shrimps and tons of Commensual Shrimp.

On the vertebrate side of things we saw several Mimic Octopus, a few Wonderpus, Flamboyant Cuttlefish, a giant Reef Cuttlefish, big Coconut Octopus and little ones too, Long Arm Octopus, four huge Reef Octopus on one dive at Jicoyance and even a Hairy Octopus…and all these octopus sightings were in the daytime..

Bargibanti’s Pygmy Seahorses seem to be on practically every sea fan we look at and there seem to be many Pontohi Pygmy Seahorses too.

Other notable sightings included several Stargazers, Ambon Scorpionfish, Velvetfish, Cockatoo Flounders, juvenile Souls, Dragon (or Pegasus) Sea moths and the bizarre Winged Pipefish…so all in all a great weeks diving on our return…

Cool photos of the week is this picture taken at California Dreaming of the small Yellow Sea Cucumber.

They are very striking cucumbers, with slightly knobby bodies and feed by extending their branch-like feeding arms into the current, then curling them into their central mouths. They are all over California Dreaming but absent from nearly all the other dive sites.

My video of the week is of one of the more illusive critters here, the Rhinopias frondosa or Weedy Scorpionfish. They tend to hang out in the same area but seem to move around a lot within that area. We will find it on one dive, then go back again a day or so later and there is no sign at all. Then, when diving at the site a week or so later, you find it again. They can come in a variety of colors, ranging from dark red and purple to yellow and lavender..this one is a lovely light red color. This one has lots of frilly appendages and a wonderful pattern. They do not move too much, and when they do, tend to flop around. A special critter to find…

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We had great guests this week, with one group from the States and another form Russia, and we had guests from South Korea, the UK, New Zealand and Switzerland. It was a pleasure diving with you all and we hope to see you again.

Click on the photos at the top and bottom of the blog to view the slideshow of Barb’s Weekly Photos.

This Week’s Photos VIEW SLIDE SHOW

As Barb and I spent last week in Singapore, resting our weary fins, cameras and other equipment, I thought I would write this week about are time so far at KBR and to give a quick recap of Barb’s beautiful photos and show my full length macro film.

It is a wonderful experience working at KBR. First and foremost, thanks to all the incredibly friendly and delightful staff at the resort, from the Dive Team to the Restaurant Staff, the Management to the Spa Girls, the Gardeners to the Construction Guys, the Laundry staff to the Security guards..all of them are helpful, polite, hardworking and always with a smile on their faces. Thank you for making KBR a special place, not just for the guests, but for us too. The KBR BBQ nights are quickly becoming a legend with all the staff playing the music and singing the songs…

The diving really has exceeded our expectations. The variation and abundance of so many different critters on so many dive sites is phenomenal. You want to go on every dive, as you never know what you might see. I love seeing our guests come back from dives with that special ‘Lembeh Smile’ on their faces, the smile together with the slightly glazed look in their eyes, as they try to recall all the different critters they saw in the muck. That smile is frequently on my face too….

So the photo gallery I’ve uploaded this week is my selection of Barb’s20 Best Photos of June. It’s very hard to choose, but they are the ones I like best. From those I have selected my Top 3, the photos I think are totally fab.

In 3rd place: Velvet Ghost Pipefish. This lovely couple, with the female in the foreground and the male in the background, seem to be reflections of each other. They are perfectly named, and you can imagine they would feel warm and smooth if ever you brushed up against one.

In 2nd place: Three Ornate Ghost Pipefish. I know that this, quite rightly, is one of Barb’s favorites. We do not, when publishing the photos, put the names or descriptions. But this photo deserves a little explanation. You can clearly see the beautiful family of white Ornates, and there is also a little blob of white in the top right corner. This, as Barb is fond of recalling, is a tiny little bit of Ghost Pipefish Poo!!! Just as she was taking the shot, the little guy decided it was time for number ones!!!

And my favorite photo of June…in 1st place: Pygmy Cuttlefish on Soft Coral. I love this photo. For those who aren’t familiar with the scale of things here, the cuttlefish is only about 2cms (less than an inch) long and camouflaging himself against a vividly colored pink soft coral tree. Tiny cuttlefish always amaze me that they are so detailed, perfect copies of their larger cousins. And to find such a great tiny specimen close to such a colorful soft coral, turning himself such a wonderful hue is a special moment in a special place.

To see the rest of Barb’s June Top 20 Photos, just click on the photo strip at the top and bottom of this blog.

My video of the week is, in fact, my completed video of my first month at KBR. It’s about 20 minutes long, all shot with my macro lens and well worth watching, especially if you are at work and feeling like you’d rather be diving…..

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And finally…….. Since the beginning of June I’ve asked the Dive Guides to write down a couple of ‘interesting’ critters they’ve seen on each dive. I’ve recorded what they saw (some it is quite general, like ‘Nudibranch’, or ‘Frogfish – various’) and it gives you a good idea of the incredible variety of amazing critters that can be found here. There are over 80 different critters, and that’s still just some of the stuff here, not all of it……

Till next week……

Barb’s June Top 20 VIEW SLIDE SHOW

Not only does Lembeh have an abundance of rare critters that, even though they can be found in other places, are highly concentrated here, it also offers a few that can only be found in the Strait. This week is about Dragons.

Now, we all love Seahorses, and we get many ‘normal’ seahorses as well as the pygmy seahorses. We also get Pipefish, that are closely related to the Seahorses (same head, thinner and straighter bodies). Then you get Pipehorses (usually pygmy) that are a cross between Seahorses and Pipefish. We mustn’t forget about the Ghost
Pipefish too, as they are different to ‘normal’ Pipefish. And just to add a little more variety, in Australia (southern coast) you get an amazing creature called a Seadragon (Leafy’s and Weedy’s). I actually made a special 1000km road trip a few years ago to go and see these incredible Seadragons.

So Lembeh being Lembeh has to have it’s own super special critter. Above I’ve listed all the variations of the wonderful seahorse/pipefish/seadragon family. The only thing that doesn’t seem to be mixed up is a cross between a Pipehorse/Pipefish and a Seadragon. So that is, of course, what was recently discovers (late 2006) in Lembeh. The Lembeh Pygmy PipeDragaon.

We heard early in the week that there was an area in front of one of the villages on Lembeh Island where a small colony had be seen. So off we set with a boat of guests and a couple of Guides to go and see if we could find them. Well, the guides, as always, within about 5 minutes had found an algae and coral covered boulder and  hanging off it were about 8 of these tiny Pipedragons!!! Fantastic!! They are terribly small, only about 2cms (less than an inch) long and very thin, almost like a think hair. They hang from a length of algae, swinging around in the current, almost invisible. There seem to be two types, I’m guessing male and female, one with a long and thin body with no hairs and the other slightly broader and has a single ‘hair’ coming out of the top of it’s head and then another single ‘hair’ coming out of it’s body, about half way along. Both of them look, when see very closely, like they are covered in tiny crystals. They swim through the water a little like the much bigger Australian Seadragons. A great find (well done Liberty and Joe) and thanks to Tamrin for hearing about them. And an amazing dive to see such a truly rare creature.

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The rest of the week wasn’t too shabby either. The Velvet, Roughsnout and Halimeda Ghost Pipefish are still on the same dive site and have now been joined by an Ornate Ghost too. We are starting to see more juvenile Pinnate Spadefish, including one on the House Reef. Another Blue Ring Octopus was seen, on another completely different site to the other sightings. We saw some lovely patterned Coleman Shrimps riding some Fire Urchins, along with some Zebra Crabs. Jony found some more pink Candy Crabs. We found more Ambon Scorpionfish, many Spiny Devilfish, Cockatoo Flounders, Spearing and Smasking Mantis Shrimp, Wonderpuses and Mimics, Tozeuma Shrimp and Bumblebee Shrimp. Some more Solar-Powered Nudis, along with a whole host of other nudis and, of course, many frogfish of all sorts.

We had lovely guests from Hong Kong, Singapore, the UK and Japan, all enjoying a fab weeks diving at KBR.

Click on the photos below or at the top of this blog to see Barb’s Great photos from this week.

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