Sounds like the start of a joke doesn’t it? An octopus, a ghost, and a muffin walk into a bar… I wish I knew the punch line, but sadly I’m a rubbish joke-teller. If you have any ideas, drop a comment. I wish this story were as funny as a joke but it’s actually kind of sad. I wrote down these three individual stories at the end of our day in Lembeh, thinking they were all unrelated, only to realize that they were in fact completely related. You may find them sad. You may find it creepy that the same story
Nudibranchs, the pride and joy of many seasoned divers. Finding one of these little colorful blobs of jelly takes a keen eye, and results in some serious bragging rights. Why mother nature decided to make sea slugs in so many different shapes and sizes and colors is beyond me. I mean land slugs are kind of gross. Sea slugs though? Show me more! Not a fan of slugs? Check out this frilly purple dude and tell me how you feel about them now! (Flabellina rubrolineata, size: 25mm) Their vibrant colors are derived from the foods that they eat. It's a bit ironic
Ok that title might be a little bit misleading. I’m actually going to present you with a species of fish known as dragonets, which include the psychedelically colored mandarinfish, so named because their vivid colors are reminiscent of the robes an Imperial Chinese ruler might wear. Our dive guides brought us to a site called Trikora, which had a plethora of cool critters to stare at in awe. That is probably why it was one of the busier sites we visited. Most of the dive sites we hadn’t had to share with other divers, but unfortunately, this site had another group
When people envision scuba diving, they probably see crystal clear blue water, a reef full of corals in every color and texture, and a kaleidoscope of various fish in every hue of the rainbow. Perhaps a turtle is munching algae off of a rock. Perhaps a shark cruises along the reef. Everything looks like an aquarium. What they probably don’t envision is the mucky, sandy bottom of a strait that hosts a busy boat port. Why would anyone ever want to dive in a place like that? Because that muck is home to a weird and wonderful assortment of critters. Some
Before we knew it, it was time to journey across the northern tip of Sulawesi to the east coast, and across the Lembeh strait to the island of the same name. The entire journey took less than two hours, and the perks of booking with the same resort in both locations included not having to painstakingly dry out our dive gear, and Tetris it back into our luggage. Yes, I just used Tetris as a verb. Instead, the resort simply loaded each of our crates, labeled with Candy Crush name tags, into the truck, and off we went. They also