Muck diving extraordinaire!

Dive #5 [ 8:34 | 61' | max.21m, avg.12m | Hairball ** ]
Dive #6 [ 10:48 | 75' | max.17m, avg.12m | Tandu Rusa ** ]
Dive #7 [ 18:01 | 64' | max.15m, avg.10m | Nudifalls * NIGHT ]

Today I got what I came for: Lembeh diving as I remembered it :o)


Critters: colony of hingebeak shrimps, various lionfish, trio of whitish harlequin ghostpipefish, cockatoo waspfish, pair of devil scorpionfish, several flounders, tiny bristle? worms, sea snake, brown, red and yellow seahorses, false stonefish, autumn-orange juvenile batfish, tiny orange frogfish, anemone shrimps, emperor shrimp, banded pipefish, cardinalfish, nudibranchs, crabs, blue spotted stingrays, flat worm and blooming corals during the night dive.

Not quite like the first time

While I do enjoy spotting critters myself, I do find it kind of weird that I'm actually stumbling upon more creatures than my guide... and I must say I'm slightly disappointed with the relatively little we've seen so far, that is, compared to the many extraordinary sightings during my first trip here in July 2005. Time to lower my expectations?

Dive #3 [ 8:33 | 58' | max.30m, avg.15m | viz~10m | Angel's Window - ]
Dive #4 [ 10:58 | 66' | max.21m, avg.12m | viz<10 | Batu Sandar * ]

Whereas yesterday I just point-n-snapped a few macro shots with my five year old Sea&Sea DX8000G, today I tried out some underwater close-up videography with a housed Panasonic FS5. In both cases using a TillyTec LED 2000 VIDEO light for illumination.

Critters: octopus, pair of orang utan crabs on a bubble coral, short-tail pipefish, 2 relatively big crabs, 2 small brown seahorses, tiny ambon scorpionfish (3cm) and a small robust ghostpipefish.

Two Fish Divers Lembeh

After having been welcomed and briefed yesterday by Helen & Gizmo, the two new managers of Two Fish Divers Lembeh, I made myself comfy in my budget room directly above the dive center, unpacked, set up my gear and met some of the other international guests.

The room's raher spartan & not very charming, but it's clean, with two basic hot! water bathrooms and toilets downstairs around the corner. To my surprise there's no mosquito net, but an electric dispenser does a great job at keeping any would-be-stingers outside. There's 24h power, so charging lights, strobes and cameras can be done around the clock. A must be for any photo- or videographers.


Activity being the best remedy against jet-lag, I immediately went for two morning dives right after breakfast.

Dive #1 [ 67' | max.20m, avg.12m | viz<10m | Tanjung Tebal ]
Dive #2 [ 70' | max.18m, avg.11m | viz~5m | Teluk Kembahu ]

Visibility ain't too good, but for artificially lighted macro & close-up snapshots that doesn't really matter too much. Water temperature's a nice 28°C, meaning my 3mm wetsuit and hooded-vest are enough to keep me relatively warm. I'd recommend a 5mm though.

Critters: small devil scorpion fish in the open, small brown frogfish pretending not to be there, four squids hovering in formation, several parading lionfish, two anemone crabs apparently not minding my attention and a tiny cuttlefish scuttling over the sandy bottom.

Sonthofen - Lembeh

After a 26h journey by car, 3 trains (to Munich), 2 planes (to Manado via Singapore), van and boat I find myself on Two Fish Divers Lembeh's black sand beach. Tomorrow the diving begins!

Food Is Power

As long as we, as consumers, just buy & eat without second thought, there'll be providers eager to supply & sell, without any scruples, whatever we pay for, no matter the price & consequences.

Nutrition is ruthless business. A fact proven once again at this year's CITES world conference, attended by over 1500 delegates from more than 170 governments, where China, Japan and their bribed allies defeated every proposal to protect various endangered shark species and the overfished atlantic bluefin tuna a.o. Shark fin soup & sushi are big money. Way too lucrative to restrict harvesting in any way.

They won't stop until it's too late, unless we can change our feeding habits. Be aware of the far reaching impact of your shopping list!

TillyTec LED 2000 underwater VIDEO light

Took advantage of TillyTec's fairly unique offer to upgrade almost any of its light-heads or battery-packs to a newer more powerful one.

That is, I exchanged my outdated-technology HID 35 not just for one, but for two new LED 2000 VIDEO light-heads, in order to have a dual evenly illuminated video lighting solution.

TillyTec's standard LED 2000 has a 175W halogen equivalent 10° beam ideal for technical diving, whereas the non-focussed VIDEO version has a more diffused 110° wide beam optimal for videography.


⊕ Modular & expandable underwater lighting system configurable to one's needs.

⊕ Power: Seven hi-tech LEDs delivering 175W of halogen equivalent output according to TillyTec's specifications (5500°K, 45000 Lux).

∅ Despite its power, the VIDEO version has a rather limited range.

⊕ Burn time: two LED 2000 light-heads can shine for more than 100' on one TT 3 NiMh battery-pack. (note that it is not possible to connect two LED 2000s to a single Flexi II or TT 2 battery)

⊕ Robustness.

∅ It's not possible to dim the output, nor change the beam's angle.

⊕ A diffuser is available that can be popped on or off underwater. While not needed for the VIDEO version (except maybe for reducing its intensity), it can be useful for softening the SPOT version's beam.

∅ Note that, even with diffuser, the LED 2000 SPOT has a hotspot when pointed towards nearby subjects or surfaces, so this option is not recommended for e.g. macro photography or close-up videography.

⊕ A Goodman handle and flexible arms are available as accessory. Both can hold e.g. TillyTec's HID 35, LED 1000 or LED 2000.

⊕ IMO, TillyTec's LED 2000 VIDEO produces nice hotspot-free illumination for macro photography or close-up videography.

→ macro photography illuminated by just one LED 2000 VIDEO
→ close-up videography illuminated by one LED 2000 VIDEO

Dive trip booked!

Got a pretty good offer for a dive trip to Indonesia from Aquaventure Tauchreisen which I readily accepted :o)

Planned are six muck diving days with Two Fish Divers in Lembeh (N-Sulawesi) and ten reef diving days with Prince John Dive Resort near Donggala (C-Sulawesi).

I need to submerge and soak up some sun

After seeing an ad in tauchen, I requested a quote from Aquaventure Tauchreisen for a 3 week combo-trip to north & central Sulawesi, for some extraordinary muck & relaxed reef diving.

boot 2010: TaucherTraum

TaucherTraum having several special tours I'd just love to join, we immediately headed for its booth to get some more information.

Michael, the owner, being the specialist for Polynesia, answered all our questions regarding snorkeling with whales, diving with sharks, accommodation & living costs and even presented some of the dive guides for some first-hand impressions. After which we had a friendly chat with Steffi & Stefan whom I'd met two years ago among sharks.

Besides Polynesia, I also gathered some info about Baja California and enquired about the situation in the Galapagos. The latter's alas getting more expensive and more restrictive every year, with dive tours not allowed on land and land tours not allowed in the water?

Still, plenty of wonderful dreams indeed, waiting to be dived into...

HybriDiving?

Via Wetpixel I came upon a product presentation video for the Lunocet monofin. While I sure would like to try one out myself, the reason I'm actually referring to this advertisement is its wonderful initial 40" sequence featuring dolphins - without a doubt some of the best footage of this kind I've ever seen.

Cocos Island, Costa Rica, July 2009

Last-minute one week live-aboard trip around Cocos Island, a small uninhabited island about 530km off Costa Rica's Pacific coast.


trip blog

YouTube

Ready for broadcast: Two short videos about diving around Cocos.

— Underwater moments at various dive spots
→ Among Sharks, clip #4: Whitetip Reef Sharks

Screening

After immediately having deleted about 15% of my video-clips during initial preview on the ship, I now screened & labeled the nearly 200 remaining ones (8.5GB) and imported about 120 of these into iMovie '08 for further selection, cutting & editing.

Frankfurt - Sonthofen

At 02:05 I started my slow middle of the night train journey from Frankfurt, via Karlsruhe and Ulm, arriving in Sonthofen at 10:00.

San Jose - Frankfurt

At 00:30 we took off without further delays, the co-pilot supposedly comfy in his new seat, unlike most of us economy-class passengers.

Our midnight arrival in Frankfurt was rather chaotic, with only two overwhelmed Condor employees there to handle a planefull of people wondering what to do next regarding their lost connections.

Eventually we did get offered the possibility to overnight at an airport hotel. An offer I declined as getting to the hotel, checking in & out and getting back would have taken more time than I had to wait till the first train bringing me home.

San Jose

Early before-breakfast transfer to the airport (20'), only to be told that our plane's delayed fifteen hours due to technical problems with the co-pilot's seat.

Surprisingly though we're not left to our own devices but taken on a city-tour, including local breakfast (gallo pinto) and walk-about, before being dropped off at the Best Western Irazu hotel, where we all get a room, lunch & dinner vouchers for a fast meal at Denny's and the ability to make any international calls as desired.

At 10pm we're once again brought tho the airport for another try at getting out of the country.

Orquideas Inn

Easy day by the hotel's pool.

Arenal

Having two dry days before returning home, seven of us chartered a minibus with driver (35$/person) for some sightseeing and getting us to Arenal, an active volcano about three hours away from San Jose.

Along the way we had an interesting look at a butterfly farm (5$), where we also got to see several kinds of hummingbirds, had a plunge in a refreshing waterfall (10$) and relaxed in a spa with thermal baths fed by hot springs (30$). Unfortunately, the 1657m high volcano remained completely hidden in thick clouds...

Puntarenas - San Jose

In stead of driving straight back to San Jose, we let Rudolfo take us on a canopy zipline tour, at 60$/person for about one hour in the tree-tops. Followed by a tasty local lunch in a roadside restaurant (casado con pollo at 2000 CRC, plus agua de fruta).

Cocos Island - Puntarenas

Pleasantly smooth sail back to Puntarenas. Shortly after we left the island yesterday evening, a pod of dolphins joined us, playing in the bow's wave till sunset.

While we off-gas any residual nitrogen accumulated over seven days of intensive diving, our gear's slowly getting as dry as possible on a ship at sea. At the end of the day, repacking everything takes 15'.