Diving Amed: Jemeluk Wall and Amed Pyramids

Our second day of diving in Amed was not quite as great as the first as far as visibility goes (it rained the previous afternoon), but we still saw a ton of stuff (and cemented the hunch I had that neither Tim nor I is capable of taking non-blurry video of a nudibranch).

Our first dive was the Jemeluk Wall, with a bit of a current. Video highlights include:

- heading out on the jukung again (this time we were two jukungs' worth of divers... each jukung fits max 4 people including the captain)

- a school of fish (who our dive guide said were "jawfish" due to their open-mouth plankton feeding, but my online research says jawfish are little sand-dwelling guys?) at 0:12... they show up again at 0:44

- pretty purple tube-y things... I'm sure they have a technical name, but I'll go with pretty purple tubes

- lionfish at 0:45

- cool blue nudibranch at 1:01

- scorpionfish (sneaky, blending in) at 1:11

- cool leaf scorpionfish at 1:19!

Second dive of the day = Amed Pyramids, a series of concrete pyramids installed offshore by the local community in the '90s to serve as the basis for a rejuvenated reef. They're pretty well covered in different corals and are currently serving as a hideout for all sorts of fish.  The visibility was crap- we actually lost our divemaster for a hot second at one point- and the current was pretty strong. But despite that, Tim managed to take some awesome video of the fish swimming into said current.

Video highlights:

- heading down!

- egg ribbon of the Spanish Dancer nudibranch 

- a couple two-tone dartfishes at 0:54

- lots of little colorful fish hanging out in the current, anthias and such

- the pyramids begin at 2:32, surrounded by tons of fish, including what I think is a school of yellow, 5-lined snapper at 2:48

- at 3:26, what I think is a midnight snapper and a couple horn-less unicornfish?

- anemone fish at 3:46

- moray eel snapping his mouth shut at 4:00

- another leaf scorpionfish hanging out inside the pyramid... this time the pink/red variety: 4:25

- a starfish and a cool black and green striped nudibranch with orange accents at 4:45

- granulated sea star at 6:16

- another nudibranch at 6:52

- a cool juvenile many-spotted sweetlips fluttering around on the reef at 7:12

- goatfish at 7:21- check out his little chin barbs digging in the sand

- some sort of filefish, maybe, at 7:41

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.

Liveaboard Life

Just some above-the-surface shots from our Andaman Sea liveaboard...

Beautiful islands:

Our boat looked something like this one:

Scuba gear, ready to rock and roll:

Everything on a dive boat is always wet:

The view from our cabin... not too shabby:

Offerings on the front of the boat:

Dolphin!  Or a whale... we couldn't quite tell:

Super cool rocks:

Super cool sunsets:

Diving the Surins: Final Day

Koh Tachai Bay: The Night Dive

I don't have any photos or video of our night dive here, but it was pretty nice. The photo above is a shot of the bay from the surface.  Anywho, this dive redeemed my interest in night dives after I had a few not-so-great experiences.  

We saw some cool stuff:  

• A massive moray eel in his little cave, not super happy we spotted him with our flashlights
• A decorator crab, which is kinda like a hermit crab, but he just sticks all sorts of stuff on him back
• Thousands and thousands of tiny shrimp, some too small to see, some skittering around... little red eyes peering out at you from every crevice! 
• Sea urchins of all varieties, on the move and eating (like so)... normally they're kinda just tucked away on the reef, but at night they literally open up and come alive
• a big old black-blotched porcupinefish, just hanging out

Koh Tachai Pinnacle

The next morning we dove this pinnacle, and man, the current was strong!  We had to descend and ascend on the boat's mooring line and I still have some rope burns on my hands from gripping as the current pulled me, regulator flapping.  Once down on the reef it wasn't so bad, but we still occasionally had to swim against  a current to stand still.  It was worth it, though, because of what we saw!  (Please excuse the shaky video... blame it on the current.  Also, it was pretty dark on the site because it was so early morning)

First: Octopus!!!!  I had seen one before, in the Gilis, but he was not active, just tucked into a hole.  This time, two octopi, one just chilling, barely visible at all in real life, blending perfectly into the rock, not visible in the slightest on my low-light video.  The other, though, moved around a little bit, shifting from one rock to another, wrapping his tentacles around the rock and briefly changing the color of his skin- flashing white.  You see it again when a fairly clueless diver swims into frame (and right over the static octopus), pointing at the more active octopus.  He flashes white again to express his displeasure:

The rest of the dive was pretty nice, too:

• Skunk anemone fish
• A big longnose butterflyfish (0:05)
• Some snapper and a trumpetfish (I love their feather-like tails) at 0:14
• Beautiful sea fan at 1:05
• Some of the video at the end is a bit crazy, although you can see the nice coral. I can't tell if I knew I was filming or not, but I know I was fighting the current to get back to the mooring line

Koh Bon Ridge

This dive was really pretty.  We were hoping for manta rays, but no dice.  That's ok, because we saw some other nice stuff, including the beautiful blue, sea green and purple pastel soft corals like the ones in the photos below:

Cool texture, eh?:

Here are the video highlights:

• Big porcupine fish
• More schools of glass fish (0:45)
• Crazy pastel colored soft corals (1:15)
• Beautiful emperor angelfish (1:25)
• Stalactite-style soft corals (1:48)
• Tim, creepy staring (2:11)
• Crescent-tail bigeye, also creepy staring (2:15)
• Nudibranch! (2:35)
• Pineapple sea cucumber (2:45)
• Tim + pufferfish (2:50)
• Cool coral, cool rocks
• Tim (3:50)

Scuba Diving the Surins: Third Dive at Richelieu Rock

Our final dive at Richelieu Rock...  another great dive.

Two-spot snapper, all over:

 

Finally!  The only clear nudibranch shot we got.  This one's the pretty common: the swollen phyllidia:

Can you spot the skunk anemone fish? There are two visible in this shot.:

Ok, that was just a warm up.  Can you spot the scorpion fish?  He's tough to find, although not as tough as the one I posted from our dives in Komodo:

Sooooo pretty... that is basically 90% anemone, waving in the currents:

Here are the video highlights:

• A couple puffers, the doofuses of the fish world
• Snapper! (0:17)
• Our randy cuttlefish friends, also seen here
• A couple of cornetfish hanging out with myriad other fishies (1:46)
• So many anemone... shag carpet (2:00)
• Those two-spot snapper I mentioned above (2:25)
• Big ole moray (3:15)
• Cute little banded boxer shrimp, totally not afraid of my camera (3:25)
• Little black juvenile three spot dascyllus... look how ugly they are when they're adults! (3:43)

Scuba Diving the Surins: Second Dive at Richelieu Rock

Dive #2 at Richelieu Rock and the sun was shining, bringing out all the purples:

A blurry nudibranch photo.  Both Tim and I are officially awful at taking nudibranch photos.  This one was the best in Tim's bunch, and it's pretty bad:

Tim caught these cute banded boxer shrimp hanging out on the reef, right below a big old oyster.  You can see their white antennae and bold, striped arms:

This video below is so sweet... peacock mantis shrimp!!!  Remember him?  One of the divemasters on our boat described the mantis shrimp as being skittish because "if your eyesight made it seem like you were constantly on an acid trip in which you see thousands of colors, you would be easily freaked out, too."  I was so excited when Tim told me he thought he got it on film since we've seen it many times, but haven't been able to film it since it moves so fast.  Tim said he saw it, but it quickly hustled back into its hole.  Tim waited quietly for a few seconds, and sure enough, it popped back out to take care of business:

Other highlights: These pickhandle barracuda hunting on the edge of the reef: amazing!  They're so sleek.  And a bit menacing when you turn around and see them hovering behind you.  They're pretty damn big:



Cuttlefish!!!!  These beautiful and mesmerizing cuttlefish were hanging out at the top of the reef right where we descending for our dive (some of the video is from our third dive, during which we saw them again):



It seemed like the biggest one was macking on a female, while the other two were trying to sneak in and snag a piece, too.  The big one was having none of it, though, chasing them off with tentacles flared.  Eventually one of the secondary suitors ended up retreating and bopping around just below me on the reef for a bit.  He seemed a little... put out.  Or maybe just regrouping for another go:

Beautiful glow they have, no?

Here's the full dive video:

In Which We Attempt an Underwater Portrait

Evolution of an underwater portrait: Meg and Tim at Richelieu Rock, February 2, 2014.

"Look towards the camera and say 'Cheese!'"

Fail.

Allllllmooooost:

Looking at camera? 

Check.  

Bizarre Ed Grimley-esque hair?

Also check.

Ok, let's try again.  Remember not to breathe out too much because the bubbles block your face.

Double Fail.

Meg: Assume Wendy from Peter Pan flying position.

Tim: Assume pooping position.

Meg: I'm so excited!  And I just can't hide it!

Tim: Still pooping.

Ok, guys, let's try an artsy back-lit shot.

Meg: Hold on a sec, my Ed Grimley hair is re-animating.  Also, I am working our the kinks on my underwater sky-diving pose.

Tim: Howdy, pardner.

Also, this:

Fin.

Scuba Diving in the Surins: First Dive at Richelieu Rock

Day 2 of our Surin Island liveaboard with Wicked Diving was all about Richelieu Rock.  Discovered (well, as a diving site) by Jacques Cousteau, the site is a standalone rock/reef in the middle of the open ocean.  We were lucky since our dive boat reached the mooring site first, so we had prime access to the dive site all day.  Good thing, too, because it was beautiful and we were happy to have time to explore it thoroughly.

A cresent-shaped limestone pinnacle, Richelieu Rock is gorgeous: absolutely covered in purple soft corals and more anemone waving in the currents than you can imagine.  Plus, since it's in the middle of nowhere, it's got some currents roiling around, bringing the big fish in, too.

Our first dive was pretty early morning, so the lighting in the first few minutes was a bit dark.  It quickly brightened up to show the pretty purple hues.

Highlights of the video:

• Some of those pretty purple anemones I described, complete with skunk anemone fish
• A big, creepy, but beautiful electric purple crown-of-thorns starfish
• A tiny yellow spotted boxfish
• Lionfish, floating around
• Selfie!
• Some cornet fish and a couple of lion fish buddies
• A couple of creepy little white-eyed moray eels poking their heads out of the reef
• So many anemones... like a shag carpet!
• Tim + titan triggerfish
• Lionfish on the move, being chased by a grouper
• A couple of those white-eyed moray eels, free swimming along the reef
• Christmas tree worms!  So cute.  I love how they pull their little colorful spiral antennae in when you come near
• A pretty white feather duster worm
• A quick glimpse of one of the many nudibranch we saw (those things are hard to capture on the GoPro... so small!)
• Crocodile needlefish on the surface (my Google search resulted in lots of images of injuries inflicted by this fish... who knew?)
• Schools of yellow snapper in the crevices of the rock
• Tim swimming into the current with the damselfishes
• Pretty peacock grouper
• Fusiliers, snapper... so many fish!
• Towards the end, in the better light, you can really see the purple carpet of soft coral and anemone.  Amazing!
• Climbing the mooring line back up to the boat at the end of the dive!

Scuba Diving in the Surins: Day 1

This past weekend Tim and I decided to get the hell out of Dodge (well, Bangkok) during Thailand's recent elections and do some scuba diving.  We'd heard that Thailand's scuba diving is generally only so-so compared to that of Indonesia, with the exception of the Surin and Similan islands, two small groups of islands in the Andaman Sea off Thailand's west coast, north of Phuket and close to the Burmese border.  At Scuba Steve's urging, we decided to book a 3-day liveaboard to the Surins and Richelieu Rock with Wicked Diving.  Good thing, too, as both the diving and the folks at Wicked were lovely.  I'm planning my next trip back already (well, not reeeeeally, but if any friends/family visit Thailand and insist on a liveaboard, I could be very easily convinced).

So here's the video, photos and description of the first day of our trip with Wicked (you can read Wicked's trip report here, too)...  Friday night we boarded the boat, ate a great meal, got our equipment ready for the next day's early morning dive, and tried to settle in our cabins as the boat lurched (oy, seas were rough that night!) towards the Surin Islands. 

Early Saturday morning we got up and headed out on our first dive, joined by divemaster Dan (you'll see him rocking the yellow snorkel in the videos), fellow diver Jun (blue fins and a camera).  Dive #1, Ao Pakkad, which was relaxing, pretty, and full of schools of sparkly little glass fish.  Sometimes they covered the reef like a blanket and you had to basically sweep them aside to see the other critters!  Also: very curious/friendly tall-fin batfish that alternated between zipping around, sneaking up on you from behind and generally hanging about.

Highlights of the below video:

•  glass fish, glass fish and more glass fish
• one of the many tall-fin batfish stalking fellow diver Jun at 0:18
• lots of lionfish (at 0:46, 4:10)
• Tim reluctantly waving (1:22)
• scorpionfish, master of disguise... see if you can spot him at 1:26
• cute little sea star at 1:51
• 2 morays, 1 rock at 2:59 (and below)

• lobster at 3:33!
• giant clam at 3:58
• white-collar butterfly fish at 4:22
• cute anemone fish side-by-side with juvenile three-spot dascyllus at 5:11
• pretty colorblocked powder blue surgeonfish (cousin to Dory, a palette surgeonfish):

Dive #2, Torinla Pinnacle, is a big, submerged pile of granite, including some major boulders.

The currents were strong when we dove, so we had to descend while holding onto the boat's mooring line.  You can see in the video below, as we descended, we caught site of something pretty awesome: 5 absolutely enormous (like I think they for sure outweighed me and were at least 5 feet long, probably more) and endangered (and therefore rare) napoleon (also called humphead) wrasse!!  You can see them coming out of the blue over the rocks in the video at 0:13.

Other video highlights:

• yellow five-lined snapper nosing around the rocks at 0:28
• big, beautiful blue-ringed angelfish at 0:44
• bubble, bubbles, so many bubbles surrounding us as we ascended to the surface since the current was pushing all our fellow divers' exhaled bubbles up towards us

Not captured on video, but super cool:

• a white-tip reef shark swimming along the edge of the rocks
• a winged pipefish (kinda looked like a stick at first)

Dive #3 was at Koh Torinla, a lovely site.  Right off the bat?  A big 4-5 foot wide Jenkins' ray!:

I don't know why I love feather stars so much, but I do.  So pretty:

The Koh Torinla site had its fair share of curious tall-fin batfish:

 Highlights from the dive video:

• Jenkins' ray.  Woo!
• More glass fish.  Crazy amounts of glass fish, surrounding us like a living fog.
• So, so many super curious tall-fin batfish, sneaking up behind us, schooling and swimming, generally hanging out... they are the stars of this show
• A cool (and big) star pufferfish, floating out off the reef, getting a cleaning(0:32)
• Moray (0:49)
• Lobster (3:10) 
• A gang of bannerfish (3:16)
• Schools of yellow-backed fusiliers (3:42)
• Beautiful oriental sweetlips (I was definitely worried about the results I would get when typing that into Google... heh heh): I looooove the combination of polka dots and stripes in bold black, yellow and white (4:52)
• Turtle! (5:15)