20 - 24 October 2009 Off we went with the tireless Simone Gerritsen of Thalassa Dive Center in Manado to explore Bunaken and the surrounding islands as well as the under-appreciated mainland Manado. We knew to expect the steep wall dives of Bunaken National Park and the beautiful coral cover of Bunaken's shallow reefs. Manado Tua beside [...]
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 [...]
15 - 17 October 2009 A relatively unknown dive destination not far from Lembeh is slowly getting its share of the limelight. Buyat Bay is about five hours from Manado located south of Lembeh. It used to be a gold mining operation that shut down recently. Now the mining facility's skeleton staff are seeing a [...]
If you happen to be in Singapore on October 27 with nothing to do at 7 pm, join us at the Botanical Gardens, as we shall be presenting our expedition so far through a 40-minute slideshow. Here's WWF Singapore's leaflet-invitation to announce the event!
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 [...]
23 September – 4 October 2009 As much as we appreciate the diversity of creatures crawling about Lembeh Strait, we appreciated more our guides who led us to them. Ronald giving a dive brief. All guides ended each brief with "thank you for your attention, enjoy your dive!" And we did! Every dive! [...]
23 September - 4 October 2009 An insanely fantastic artist friend of ours by the name of Robert Strachan has, for years, barked out an order everytime we went on a dive journey. "Will you photograph fish faces for me? Not side view. Not quarter view. I want full frontal in-your-face fish faces!" Robert speaks in either bold or [...]
23 September - 4 October 2009 What the heck is muck? We have been diving in the Lembeh muck for the past 12 days and finding it so interesting we could hardly tear ourselves away from it. We must be mad, you'd think. How can diving silt and sand be interesting? Well, it is interesting because in seemingly [...]
23 September 2009 Our second dive today is in Jahir I, named after the one of the pioneer Indonesian dive guides, Jahir! It was spectacular. I'm running out of superlatives here and pretty soon, I'm going to sound boring. Too much of !!!!! Third dive was in Airbajo I. Here are some pictures to show [...]
