Lembeh, again and differently…

Travels

After only six months I was standing again in Bitung, looking at Lembeh just across the Strait. I was amused by the faces of my friends. We just came from Selayar, a white sandy beach with only one resort. Just perfect! Here they stood in the smelling fish market, wondering if it was a wise decision to trust me. We crossed the Strait and, guess what ? We got soaked right in the middle as rainy downpours are usual in a Lembeh afternoon…

It is a strange feeling to get back to a place such as Lembeh. Six months ago, it took me by surprise. My camera overheated at every dive. I was overwhelmed by all these new critters . Sometimes I couldn’t even figure out what I was looking at. My camera was my logbook. My 100+ photos per dive helped me identifying a great number of critters. I was eager to getting everything on memory card. In the end I still had more than 800 pictures from a week’s stay left. But I realised , that I haven’t thought about how taking out the best of the shot. I just pressed the button…

This time I had something different in mind. But what is a different shot? I watched the critters for a while. Turned around. Figured out different perspectives. Sometimes it worked, many times it didn’t.

clown with eggs
Clownfish protecting its eggs on a green tea can

nudi couple

eye contact I tried to find special perspectives on the common Lembeh critters, nudis are wonderful subjects to try this out. All slow-moving subjects are great to experiment. I tried nevertheless to limit myself to five shots per critter in order to prevent them from becoming completely blind!

Wherever possible I was looking for interaction with the critters as with the cowfish on the left. This little fellow was looking around for food as I was watching him almost motionless (…and breathless). I don’t know why but for a second he looked up at me and then continued on his way.
I was amused to see so many critter couples underwater this time. As always we had one mandarinfish dive. These small fish are wonderful and nearly impossible to photograph . Slowly appearing in the dusk, moving around. Larger males turning around the smaller females or chasing other males from their territory. And then at one moment the firework starts. Males and females join in a two second long mating pose above the corals and then vanish quickly under the rubble. I only kept 2 photos out of 30+…
mandarin When I went through my photos after the evening meals, my friends were surprised by the number of photos I deleted right away.
This is until now the most difficult thing to do for me. How selecting which shoot goes to the trash and which one is a keeper?
A life long learning process…
At some moments I nearly fell back into the “papparazzi” modus. As I said I came more or less prepared to Lembeh, but this was without dealing with my “Holy Grails”. I think everybody has a wish list (especially just before Christmas :-), a special critter never encountered before. Most of the time a rare species .
I had the chance to come across a purple Rhinopias. WOW! An overwhelmimg feeling . I really needed a couple of minutes to realise what I was looking at. In these moments my first move was to shoot. But then I stopped, watched what we called later Salvador Dali and took 5 shoots.
The Ambon scorpionfish took me by surprise as well. Well camouflaged it was almost impossible to spot..
I took some pictures with my old compact E-900 to play around with the wide angle wet lens. Unusual in Lembeh, but what a fantastic experience

But be reassured I took plenty of “classic” Lembeh subjects. But I’m more than ever in search of the Holy Grail. The picture which makes the difference. A life long search. At least I hope so.
octopus in shell

I won’t close this post without at least one photo of the kings of Lembeh : the frogfish!

froggie

Lembeh Impressions…

my slideshows

I just started to put small slideshows of my photos to Youtube. You will find them here or in the “My slideshows” category.

Looking for your next dive vacation? Here is a glimpse of what you can find in Lembeh, North Sulawesi.

Selayar – South Sulawesi’s underwater haven

underwater

I’m back home for almost one week and still haven’t get used to the lack of light in Luxembourg during the winter time. One way to forget about it is to work on the photos from the trip. Now it’s time for the first report for those of you longing for the sun like me and of course for all the others as well.

Selayar is a hidden paradise and as most of these places long and almost impossible to get to. A 4 to 5 hour ride by car brings you from Makasar to Bira, a small port south east where a ferry boat leaves daily to Selayar island, 80 km long, thin, covered in thick forest. Most of the people live on the west coast which offers unbelievable sunsets. Benteng the main town lies as well on the sunset side.

Beach at Selayar Dive Resort

The Selayar Dive Resort, on the other hand lies on the east coast at the southern tip of the island admist a lush forest on a beautiful 1 km white sandy beach. No roads bring you there. The fast resort speedboat awaits the guests in Bira and rushes along the hillside eastern coast down to the resort within 2 hours.

beach2

The eight bungalows are well hidden under the trees on the beach so that you can barely see them upon arrival. On the jetty Jochen, the German owner, welcomes you. The stuff deals with your heavy luggage while Ifa in the restaurant is serving a fresh welcome drink.
The traditionnal Indonesian style bungalows are designed by divers for divers. A concrete bassin to wash off the sand from your feet features at every bungalow. Lots of electric plugs for your lamps, computers, photo gear,…but the real luxury in the room are the three large tinted windows filling almost the whole front wall of the bungalow. Through the trees you can enjoy the sunrise over the ocean, even from your bed.

DIVING

Mostly all dives lie within 10 min by speedboat from the resort. The housereef is simply breathtaking. A healthy wall falls down to the endless blue and on the wall you can find anything from pygmy seahorses to colourful nudibranchs, surrounded by all sorts of reef fish, huge lobsters and crabs at night, batfish around the jetty. Don’t forget to have a look in the open blue as the occasional reef shark or eagle ray may pass…

pygmy DENISE

featherstar

saron

Jochen takes his guests out with the speedboat two times a day. Dive times are scheduled by the sun and the moon, the tides bring strong currents at full moon periods and with them big fish.

deep

Depths down to 55m are on daily menu for the deep blue fans to get an even bigger chance to meet hammerheads, grey reef sharks, mantas, eagle rays,tunas, trevallies…Sharkpoint and Carl’s corner are the topspots for the big stuff, as are Opera and Steps.

wall

elephant ears

Netz is a nice wall dive where you can look for cool critters in an old fishing net hanging on the wall.

the net

The reef top at all dive sites lies in between 9 and 3 m and is the ideal place for your decompression/safety stop. Nudis, morays, turtles, endless reef fish play in the current.

moray eel

anemone fish

reef

Do you want to experiment a “real” night dive at 11pm or an early morning dive, I mean really early before sunrise at 4 am. Just gear up. Walk down the jetty and jump! The housereef is open 24 hours (unguided).

jetty

After a couple of days, we realized that there were no “electric” sounds : no TV, no mobile phones, no music. The only rhythm comes from the sound of the waves, interrupted by the geckos.

gecko