...is in Bunaken, North Sulawesi.
I left Bali on the 18th for this remote part of Indonesia to visit my German Buddy Theresa, who had invited me along to dive with her where she was finishing off her DM classes. Now, I've known that Indonesia diving is supposed to be the some of the most abundant, colorful, and diverse on earth, but seeing sure is believing! The life here blew my mind - every dive was like something from the cover of a dive magazine, and I had trouble recalling all the cool stuff for my logbook.
Beyond the fact that all the dive sites were amazingly colored walls that seemed to descend to the far side of the planet, there were clouds of vibrantly hued reef fish everywhere along with sharks and plenty of turtles. With the constant currents doing all the work carrying us gently back and forth along the vertical reef, my shortest divetime was 75 minutes! The special things that really made my dives were all of the exotic small animals we found - pygmy seahorses the size of 1/4 of your pinky-nail, all different kinds of strikingly colored nudibranchs, mandarin fish, lionfish of many different species under every rock, 5 different kinds of moray eel. Do you want me to go on? OK, I will. Flatworms, mantis shrimp with powerful claws, super poisonous kraits and seasnakes, tiny anemone crabs and finally on my last dive, the one tiny little strange creature I'd always hoped to see - an ornate ghost pipefish!
I left Bali on the 18th for this remote part of Indonesia to visit my German Buddy Theresa, who had invited me along to dive with her where she was finishing off her DM classes. Now, I've known that Indonesia diving is supposed to be the some of the most abundant, colorful, and diverse on earth, but seeing sure is believing! The life here blew my mind - every dive was like something from the cover of a dive magazine, and I had trouble recalling all the cool stuff for my logbook.
Beyond the fact that all the dive sites were amazingly colored walls that seemed to descend to the far side of the planet, there were clouds of vibrantly hued reef fish everywhere along with sharks and plenty of turtles. With the constant currents doing all the work carrying us gently back and forth along the vertical reef, my shortest divetime was 75 minutes! The special things that really made my dives were all of the exotic small animals we found - pygmy seahorses the size of 1/4 of your pinky-nail, all different kinds of strikingly colored nudibranchs, mandarin fish, lionfish of many different species under every rock, 5 different kinds of moray eel. Do you want me to go on? OK, I will. Flatworms, mantis shrimp with powerful claws, super poisonous kraits and seasnakes, tiny anemone crabs and finally on my last dive, the one tiny little strange creature I'd always hoped to see - an ornate ghost pipefish!
What? You want more? OK, try to imagine a boat speeding across a glass-calm ocean to the next dive site when a gigantic pod of about 130 dolphins & calves starts leaping out of the water all around and playing in the bow wave. And they play with us for about 15 minutes!
If you're still not impressed, I quit.
The dive op was Two Fish Divers,http://www.twofishdivers.com/
run by an English couple named Tina and Nigel, and everyone was really friendly. All the meals were local food served family style and every night we hung out and sang along while the DMs and staff played guitars and sang. While I was there we celebrated two birthdays and a successful IDC, but we never really needed the excuse to pull out the palm wine (think sweet and toxic,) and Bintangs and start a party...
My bungalow was up the road a bit and it was back to the old nightime-only electricity, mosquito nets, and cold showers again; but frankly - it was absolutely perfect. I walked home each night up the islands main road (which was noticeably less substantial than some driveways I've had,) guided by the bright moonlight and nearly deafened by the chorus of crickets, geckos and tree frogs. Pelan, pelan, (slowly, slowly) is the refrain for the musical life these Bunakens lead and we should all take note 'cause they are doing it right: the island is a big mix of Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, and animist and everyone gets along and respects each other just fine. The pace of life (and lack of internet,) could make you forget there was even a world outside and I felt so at peace. I loved it - though I think Bunaken might actually be too quiet for me to live, it's still one of the best places I've ever been.
The week flew by and once again, leaving was very painful, but I headed back to Bangkok to salvage whatever I could from my tattered schedule.
(I'll try to add more pictures later - my hard-drive is acting up, grrrrr.)
Ciao,
C
