Singapore
Indonesia: Manado, Bunaken, Lembeh Straits
Malaysia: Tioman island
So with our new camera in hand we flew to one of our favorite dive spots, Bunaken and Lembeth Straits on Sulawesi. We were once again met by the smiling crew from Froggies Divers who drove us through the busy city of Manado to the port where we caught a boat to Bunaken (for some reason the shops here think that the louder the music the more customers will come, and there was a lot of very load music, some even sounded like a live concert). Arriving is a happy occasion as you see the same happy faces each time with a few new people every once in a while, and to our surprise some of the divers from our last trip. We took the same room as we did last time as it overlooks the water and it's nice to sit outside to see the sunset behind Manado Tua and later at night to watch the fire flies (when the mosquitoes are not too bad). After the evening meal (reallly good food) there is usually music, played by the dive guides and boat crew, they love to sing and if things really get's going there might be some dancing, so things were pretty social for the most part.
Now for the diving: The Bunaken area is a fantastic dive area with steep walls that drop a thousand meters plus and at times have powerful currents so that you fly by the walls or move so fast that you can barely hold onto the rocks (this is where a local guide is very good to have). The dive sites we dived were: Likuan 1, 2, 3, Mandolin, Mike's point, Muka Kampung, Johnson's (night dive), Gunter's, Raymond's point, Ron's point, Pangalingan (Manado Tua), Alung Banua, Tanjung Pisok, Fukui, Sachiko's Point, Batu Kapal, Barakuda (Montehage). Some sites are better than others but on the average there is no better wall diving, even if we have not been everywhere in the world, and the variety of things to see are amazing. This area is a national park and the local North Sulawesi Watersports Association (NSWA) looks after the wellbeing of the park (for the most part) and charges divers a small park fee. This time we saw an amazing amount of underwater life: White-tip and black-tip sharks, eagle rays, green turtles, hawkbill turtles, napoleon wrasse, pygmy seahorse, dogtooth tuna, blueringed octopus, dragonets, a new species of pygmy seahorse (found by Henche a Froggies dive guide), ghostpipefish, frogfish, crabs and shrimps, loads of nudibranch and so much more, so much it filled my dive log pages. Of course, having an underwater camera case for the first time was great, luckily it was a simple camera to use.
We once again went on a liveaboard to Bangka island and Lembeh Straits to find more creatures in the sea, we did our first dives on Bangka at Christiane's point and Sahaung, both very good, before we ate and settled in for the night. The whole trip had been a bit rough and wet but it's worth it, our first dive in Lembeh was at Hair ball 1. Just remember we are supposed to be here for muck diving, we were just starting off our dive when out of the blue come two manta rays, were we surprised or what, here we are supposes to be looking for small stuff. After the shock wore off we continued on a fantastic dive, back on board things were still a bit wet but I guess it does not matter too much when you're in the water most of the time. The crew was making us fantastic meals, playing some music for us and even spotting frogfish for us from the surface. As we ventured on we dived the following sites: Hair ball 1, Teluk Kembahu, Lettuce Surprise, Jahir, Nudi Falls, Police Pier, Pantai Parigi and Nudi Retreat. There are really some fantastic dive sites and each one has it's own surprises and we are yet to have a bad dive in Lembeh, if anything it just get's better. Things we saw were: stargazer, seahorses, pygmy seahorses, decorator crabs, stonefish, pegasus sea moths, ghostpipefish, mantis shrimp, frogfish, mandarinfish, moray eels, flying guernard, various octopus, up to 20 different nudibranch on some dives and so much more. All good things come to an end so we started our journey back to Bunaken where we would finally get dry before we get back into the water again.
We had several more days of diving wwith amazing wall diving with so many things that we did not want to leave but in the end so sadly packed our bags and said our goodbyes to all the lovely people we met and the staff that have been so great the whole time. We made our way back to the airport and were soon on our way back to Singapore for some much needed rest and relaxation and it was also time for Jorunn to fly home to work while I spent another 10 days diving. Our time in Singapore was spent shopping and eating great food so time went very quickly and I sadly said goodbye to Jorunn then went back to the hotel to get ready for my departure in the morning.
I departed early by bus to Mersing and ferry to Tioman island where I found myself a room before heading off to B&J divers to check in and met some divers I had met the last time we were here. I started diving the next day and soon was happy taking pictures with our new camera. Even if I was missing my dive buddy, in the afternoon there was always a game of volleyball or I would read while laying in a hammock under the palm trees. I met a few people while on Tioman and after dinner I always seemed to find the dive masters or some other people at the bar, one night it got so full that people were bringing tables and chairs with them. I dived the following dive site this time: Chebeh island, One tree, Tiger rock, Labas island, Fan canyon, Soya island, Sawadee wreck, Renggis and Batu Sepoy. About now I was starting to be a bit dived out and a bit tired of being chased by triggerfish.
The story about triggerfish is a story that needs to be told as these fish have huge front teeth for biting through the coral and has powerful jaws, now when it's mating season things get really crazy. The female makes a hole about half a meters round and protects the area in a cone shape all the way to the surface (like a V) and likes to use those front teeth. First time we saw the results were when we were leaving the Perhentians and there was a guy with bandages on his way to the hospital to get stitches. Another time it was a bit more funny as we were in Bunaken on a sandy slope where one of the dive guides (Hence) was using a metal pointer to point out something, when we saw something flash by very fast. We soon realized that it was a triggerfish and also that Hence only had half a pointer left, you should have seen the expression on his face, we could not stop laughing (and it's hard to laugh underwater).
After meeting a lot of nice people and doing some fun diving it was time to leave, so I made my way back to Singapore back to the The New 7th Story where I shared a room we a couple of guys until my flight departed. My flight was leaving 22.00 the next evening so I rang a couple of girls from Singapore i had meet on Tioman to see if they had time to meet for dinner, I was sharing a room with another Swede so asked if he wanted to come along, when we got there we found three girls waiting for us in a dumpling restaurant. After dinner one girl had to go to work and I had a flight to catch so I left the Swede with the girls and headed off to the airport and home to my other half.
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