I haven’t had enough sleep for the past few days because of work, travel and my obsession with my new laptop. Gadgets, they keep you up all night:D And that’s the reason why you are seeing pictures on the blog now.
I was told that the pick up to Tulamben will be at 7am. Not the best time really. I dread snoozing the alarm over 30 times. In no time, I was on my way to Tulamben, fast dozing off on the ride, missing out on the sights along the way. I woke up just in time to view the magnificent Mount Agung with the trail of destruction following the 1963 eruption. I love it so much that I visited it the next day, walking through the landscape formed by volcanic rocks.
At the beach resort at Tulamben, a burly man called out to me as I was walking to my room, “hey! I know you!” It was Ketuk, a DM with the dive shop that I met during my last trip. I remember him because he asked me alot of questions about photography and he too, is very interested in it. Also, he shared alot about what to see at the dive sites. He offered to lead the dive which I happily accepted, knowing that I’ll be in good hands.
I was grouped with 6 divers from Malaysia. Really nice and funny people. Some of them were into underwater photography too, which created a common topic for that two days we were together. As usual, first dive was at USS Liberty wreck followed by the Drop Off and a chilling night dive at the wreck again. Pygmy seahorse, box shrimps, octopuses, nudis, among other stuff. Overall, a very satisfying first day.
The 2nd day started with a “relatively late” dawn dive. But it was still good enough for some good “catches” and avoiding the day trip divers that usually arrive around 10am. That was followed by a little muck diving at Seraya. Lots of interesting looking nudis, ghost pipefish, anemone crab and shrimps, garden eels, seahorse, the great barracuda and lots more. Some were way too small that I could hardly make out with naked eyes, not to mention through that tiny viewfinder. Awesome day.
Here are some images for that two days. More will be posted when I’m back in Singapore:)
The pygmy seahorse. Incredibly tiny and extremely well camouflaged. A favourite subject among macro photographers.
I think it’s called the box shrimp. Their tails rattle like a rattlesnake. It’s interesting just watching them.
One of the many colorful and tiny nudibranches spotted at Seraya.
The common pipefish. This one is huge and apparently, not very when I approached.
School of fishes. Don’t know the spieces, but they sure look nice when they come in schools.
A huge octopus. There are two of them at the same area. Somehow I think they know each other and it seems they were attacked by some fishes and swam into hiding. That’s the first time I saw an octopus swimming in open water. Pretty much like a cuttlefish in reverse direction.
Mantis shrimp. The colors are just irresistable. I’m not sure if this is the same “lai4 liao4 xia1″ that I had in Hongkong. They sure look similar. Nicer alive though.
Ghost pipefish. Another favourite for photographers.Usually camouflaged within similar looking sea ferns.
Flatworm. I caught this after photographing the ghost pipefish during the night dive. I was rather disturbed by the amount of planktons attracted to my strobe modeling light when I was taking pictures of the pipefish. But I like how the planktons showed up in this picture.
Some crab which I have yet to identify. A whole family of them lives here.
The school of jacks at USS Liberty.
The lone barracuda at the wreck. It scared away a bunch of divers by just swimming close. Kumar (in the picture) didn’t know it was behind him when he turned around. His friends had a good laugh over his reaction. Although seemingly friendly, I get chills (looking at the row of teeth) whenever it swims towards me. If it ever decide to be nasty, it’ll be the end.
A huge nudibranch. It was crawling between two rocks. Doesn’t it look like a dog from this view?
The volcanic landscape created by Mount Agung.
Dusk at Mount Agung and the barren landscape on an amazingly windy day. After this, I took a fifteen minutes walk along the road in total darkness back to the hotel. Good thing I brought my dive torch.
