Diving Amed: Bunutan and Deep Blue

Over Christmas, Tim and I headed back to Bali, to our favorite low-key fishing and salt-making village (or group of villages, really), Amed. We decided to do some dives while in the area... good times!

Our first dive was at Bunutan, a quick boat ride away (jukung, the Indonesia outrigger canoe, to be specific) from our hotel on Lipah beach.

A great dive- we saw a ton of stuff... check out the video below. Highlights:

- heading off shore in the jukung

- the lovely

- cool barrel corals
- a big ole moray eel hanging out outside of his hole (1:01)
- some sort of kooky little fish (filefish maybe? at 2:00)
- 2 blurry nudibranchs, doin' it (2:08)
- a ginormous, blurry nudibranch (hexabranchus, perhaps), with an emperor shrimp on its back (2:29)
- lots of pretty, colorful fish, including pyramid butterfly fish, red-tooth triggerfish, emperor angelfish, brown-marbled grouper, needlefish...
- 3! pygmy seahorses, barely visible as they are the size of a fingernail clipping, hanging out in the sea fan (3:33)

Not pictured, but seen on the Bunutan dive:

- a baby white-tip reef shark under the coral!

- like 10 blue-spotted stingrays hanging out in the sand

- a walking feather sea star... I rarely see them on the move!

We also saw this cool spiny lobster, hanging out below the coral:

After a brief on-shore rest, we headed back out for a killer dive at Deep Blue, a 2-kilometer long drift along some lovely coral.

Highlights of the video:

- orange, hairy, orangutan crab (which I wish our divemaster hadn't poked) at 0:21

- a cool school of rainbow runners swimming to and fro around us at 0:41

- moorish idols at 1:10

- blue and yellow fusiliers at 1:20

- Tim, upside down, his preferred diving method (2:15)

- a couple big titan triggerfish (2:22 and 4:04)

- emperor angelfish (2:30)

- lots of awesome anemones and anemone fish (2:37)

- lionfish (2:47)

- blurry, but cool porcelain crabs in an anemone at 3:00

- panda butterfly fish at 3:18

- a big old map puffer at 3:27

- oriental sweetlips at 3:45

- another moray eel at 3:56

- so many anemones!

Not on video:

- another orangutan crab

- another baby white tip reef shark

- a couple napoleon wrasse in the distance

- clown triggerfish

- midnight snapper

But the highlight of our Deep Blue dive was this big school of bigeye trevally (also called jacks)... awesome!  Reminded me of the scene in Finding Nemo when the school of fish is giving Dory and Marlin directions.

Back to Bukit Lawang: People of the Jungle

Last time I was in Bukit Lawang (with Colleen and Scuba Steve), I had such a good time that I insisted we go back for more jungle trekking, rafting and general shenanigans with our favorite guides, Jakka and Simon. 

We arrived late night and headed out on the trek through Gunung Leuser National Park early the next morning:

Right of the bat we were in greeted with some wildlife... a troop of Thomas Leaf Monkeys (remember them from last time?):

Then some greedy macaques (or "cheeky monkeys," as the Bukit Lawang folk call them).

We did some vine swinging:

Some massive tree climbing:

And then, voila, all of our orangutan dreams came true... Tim and Chuck got their first sighting, and then another and another and another:

All in all we saw 5 adult orangutans, each with a little baby!  Pretty awesome day.  No Mina this time, although I can't say I am too too disappointed about that, given her

reputation for being a bit bitey.  We did see Sepi and her baby, though, who I had seen earlier in the year at the feeding platform.  I said hi.  She seemed good.

We also each sweated approximately 2 liters of water each... ok, maybe 4 liters for Tim.

 These pics are like the Where's Waldo of the jungle... find the orangutan:

Photos of us are courtesy of Jakka, who enjoyed playing the tourist for a day and gently mocking us... "Your country is so amazing!"

Bukit Lawang: Bat Cave

On our last day in Bukit Lawang, in addition to checking out the orangutan feeding site, we hoofed it over to what was advertised as "The Bat Cave."

This involved crossing over the river on yet another sketchy bridge:

 

But we did get to see another troop of Thomas Leaf Monkeys hanging out as we passed through an area that had rubber trees and oil palms growing:

Once we got to the cave area itself it was very Indiana Jones-esque... dark, wet, slippery, covered in crazy vines:

No photos of the bats inside the cave (it was dark and I wasn't keen on using the flash in fear of waking all the bats and having them descend on me en masse...), but we did take the lovely shots above in which we pretend to climb the massive vines/tree roots.  You're welcome.

Also, Steve made a purple butterfly friend:

Bukit Lawang: Orangutan Feeding in Gunung Leuser Park

In addition to our fun jungle trek, we had another opportunity to check out the orangutans of Bukit Lawang.  The national park still provides twice daily supplementary feedings for the rehabilitated/reintroduced orangutan population.  Feedings are done at a wooden platform that is a 15 minute hike (straight up, I might add) from the ranger station.  To get to the ranger station you have to take this rubber boat across the river:

This monkey looked like he either wanted to join us or sabotage our river crossing by messing with the wire the boatmen used to drag us across:

You can see the monkey again, just above Steve and Colleen in this shot.... the photo next to it is us waiting for the park rangers to get themselves organized to head out to the feeding.  Jam karet, indeed (jam karet = an Indonesian phrase meaning "rubber time," referring to the flexibility of deadlines, schedules, etc. in Indonesia):

On our short hike to the feeding platform, we encountered one of the orangutans we had seen on our trek, Suma, and her baby, just hanging out:

When we got to the feeding platform, things were a little slow to pick up.  This park ranger spent about 40 minutes alternating between banging this rock on the platform to sound the dinner bell and scanning the tree tops for incoming orangutans:

Finally an orangutan decided to take advantage of the free meal, bringing her baby with her.  This is Sepi, which means "quiet," and her baby Casa (or maybe it's Kasa?).  She slowly approached via the treetops, giving us the hairy eyeball as she descended:

 

Both mom and baby were digging the green bananas, it seems:

When I uploaded my photos to Picasa, it automatically made me this awesome GIF below.  Love it!:

Aaaaand, feeding time is over: