20 November 2009 Second day we were asked to wake up at 5:30am! By after breakfast and 6:15am we were off. The seas were glass flat and calm as. The early morning sun made really brilliant reflections on the water but after 2 hours of searching, we still didn’t see any leatherback turtles. Yogi spotted [...]
19 - 26 November 2009 After zooming around the many islands in Wakatobi, it was a relief to finally stay put in one community and concentrate in one thing and one thing only - leatherback marine turtles. Kei is the only location in Indonesia we can hope to photograph leatherbacks underwater. It is also the home [...]
3 November 2009 Hugua - Regent of Wakatobi We had a very enlightening afternoon with the Bupati (Mayor) of Wakatobi, Pak Hugua. He was very aware of the Coral Triangle and the efforts of WWF, TNC & CI to help in the conservation efforts of this all important region. His special interest of [...]
2 - 12 November 2009 The hour we arrived in Wanci, we immediately had a meeting with WWF Indonesia Wakatobi Project Leader Veda Santiadji in their Wangi Wangi office. He offered us different travel scenarios and we got really excited when the first option was to do initial diving on 2 snapper Spawning Aggregation Sites (Spags) then proceed to [...]
2 - 12 November 2009 You cannot mistake the religion of this area. Five times a day, we would hear the Imam sing from loudspeakers of nearby mosques. I loved it. This young man walks to the mosque for his noontime prayers Our WWF companion Sugiyanta or Mas Sugi as everyone called him, [...]
23 October 2009 This day was a walk down memory lane. Eight years ago, when we were finalizing our shoot for our book Sulu Sulawesi Seas for WWF, we spent five midnights to mornings with the funae fishermen of Bunaken Island. Their hard work started when they bought live anchovies in Tanawango in mainland Manado at midnight. [...]
18 October 2009 About 15 years ago, Yogi dove and dove and dove for two straight months with Murex Dive Resort and Liveaboard in North Sulawesi. During this period, he contracted dengue fever and got a special visit from Murex's very owner, the gentle, soft-spoken Dr. Batuna. His verdict was, "You'll live." So when Yogi indeed survived [...]
10 October 2009 This is the day Yogi turns 50! Happy half-a-century, Yogibear! It is also the day we learned about the circle hook and de-hooking tuna longline vessels' by-catch. Circle or C-hooks versus traditional J-hooks for tuna longliners Hafizh Adyas of WWF Indonesia oversees the By-catch Programme, and Rudy Masuswo Purwoko, a Bitung fisheries [...]
5 - 10 October 2009 Skip jacks - one of the many monuments in Bitung. The others are a mini Eiffel Tower and a cement bag monument. Go figure After intensive diving in Lembeh, it was again time to shift gears and swing to the other extreme of photographing fisheries. This time it [...]
20 August 2009 We got off our 12-day liveaboard on the Seven Seas and hired ourselves a local floating home named Merannu, or Bajo language for “happy.” Our four-night floating hotel - Flores style We swung again from luxury to basic and as always, found ourselves pleasantly surprised. Now our aim was to [...]
