We left a rainy Perth
just after a filling brunch; Steve felt a bit rough – too many sunshine beers! We
flew with the lesser-known Indonesian airline called ‘Garuda’ as they had a
large luggage allowance – excellent with all our dive kit, however, the mean
Garuda check in lady weighed our hand baggage after sending our checked bags
through. Steve’s hand baggage was three kilos over. We could not put the excess
in our checked baggage as it had already gone. Rupan tried to explain that
maybe it would have been better to weigh all the bags at the same time but the
mean check in lady was being stupid! A diplomatic solution was finally reached.
Rupan removed her laptop and added the three kilos to her hand baggage. Still,
can’t complain too much as there were no excess baggage charges!
After the almost four-hour
flight we arrived in Denpasar where our driver met us for the three-hour
transfer to the resort in Tulamben. The transfer was a bit scary, not only do
Indonesians have no road sense (even worse than the Western Australians), but
it was pitch black, raining and the route took us through the winding mountain
pass.
Our south East
Asia dive guru Martin “Mad Hair” Reiser had recommended Scuba Seraya Resort and
we were not disappointed. Our home for the week was a beachfront villa with our
own garden and most importantly our own outdoor day bed – perfect for lounging
on in between dives!
Our plunge pool in the garden
Our outdoor bed
Buddah looking at the sunrise at Scuba Seraya
The following
morning, we wandered down to the restaurant/coffee bar/reception and had
breakfast whilst filling in our diving paperwork.
On the way to a dive with Mount Seraya in the background
We were diving on
magic gas – nitrox which requires analysing before each dive. We analysed our
gas, kitted up, made sure our cameras were ready and jumped on the rib. After a
short boat ride we arrived at our first dive site - the Liberty Wreck. This was
surprisingly very close to the shore. The wreck was amazing, marine life had
made a claim to every surface. It was almost indistinguishable.
Boxer Crab
Nudibranch laying eggs
The next dive was
a muck dive at Melasti, named after a local temple. If you are new to muck
diving, when you enter the water on your first ever dive, your first thought
is: there’s nothing to see but black sand and rubble. This is far from true.
The sand and rubble is teaming with little critters. They also cling to what
little vegetation makes the sand and rubble its home. They maybe well
camouflaged, small or form a symbiotic relationship with another creature or
plant. Komang our guide pointed out many of these weird and alien creatures.
Small fish living in a feather star
Painted Frogfish
Our final dive of the day was a shore dive from the resort called Seraya Secrets. Again this was a muck dive. So again we were treated with more weird and wonderful critters.
Whip coral critter
Nudibranch
Wonderpus - spotted by Rupan!
RIP to the new species of Fangblenny
The first days’
diving was fantastic. The days that followed were not disappointing either. We
had a new guide – Semut who had said that he had discovered a new species of
blenny, a small burrowing fish. He took us to the site and asked Rupan to take
pictures, as he needed these for verification. These pictures were emailed to
the US. The next day a marine biologist from the institute of marine
science turned up at the resort. Semut took him to the site and to his horror
cyanide was squirted into its burrow and the dead fish was extracted. He told
us that it did seem to be a new species and if that was the case then the
institute absolutely needed a specimen to verify this. I guess the guides
thought that they would just photograph the blenny and were mortified that he
just killed it. It does seem odd that the marine biologist didn’t stay longer
to observe and ensure that this blenny was not alone, or worse the only
breeding female. I don’t think the guides will be so quick to tell the
authorities about further new species in the future.
The macro footage was shot using my new macro lens, +2 diopter and lights.
We had a great trip but sadly it was time to head back to Perth. The transfer back to the airport was equally as scary - we were held up by a herd of ducks and missed several monkeys who clearly did not know the green cross code. We arrived back in a dark and wet Perth just before midnight on Saturday. Raining when we left and raining on our return, what happened to the sunshine - we did not sign up for this!
We had been discussing Sunday breakfast options all week, and had settled on Harvest. We shared a full breakfast with black pudding and huevos rancheros, and for dessert banana bread (dessert with breakfast - oh yes) - very tasty. Whilst hanging the dive kit out to dry on the balcony later that day we spotted a pod of four dolphins driving a school of fish into the shore, before snapping them up. This went on for a good twenty minutes and was amazing.
Just before Easter Rupan was up north working in Karratha for a few days, and then flew straight to Adelaide for the ASOHNS conference. Great conference and a bit of a British reunion as all the English Fellows working in Australasia turned up, including Charlie and Jo Giddings, Scott Henney and Mat Daniel - really great to catch up!
For the Easter weekend, we left the rain in Perth early on Thursday 5th April and landed in the blistering heat of Exmouth, just after eight in the morning. There we took the shuttle bus to Ningaloo Lodge.
We were picked up just after twelve, as we had arranged to dive the Navy Pier that afternoon - this is one of the worlds top ten dive sites. The pier is situated at the north eastern tip of the cape and stretches out into the Exmouth Gulf. As it is still located on a working US Navy Communications base security is tight and we had to show ID at the gate.
We kitted up on the Pier and made our way down to a dive platform, which was still some three meters from the water. It was from this platform that we were to make our entry by giant stride. Rupan was a little scared but finally made the leap into the water. Grrrr!
With 5m viz, the coral encrusted pylons and cross beams gave the site an eerie feel. Schools of snapper and trevally were abundant. We spotted a wobbegong and four white tip sharks sleeping on the bottom. There were plenty of smaller critters too - lots of colorful nudibranchs, flat worms, shrimp and a toad fish. On our safety stop we were spooked by a giant groper - locally know as BFG. An awesome dive - one we would dive again! In the top ten - maybe?
There are not many eating options in Exmouth and we were advised that we should book especially as it was Easter. We booked Whalers and were not disappointed. We munched our way through the seafood extravaganza - whole tiger prawns, crispy soft shell crabs, natural oysters, grilled chilli scented calamari and king prawns, Exmouth bugs & grilled Local fish. Yum. Yum. And very filling.
Next day we were up early and at the dive center by half seven. We boarded the dive boat and set off to Lighthouse Bay. The viz was bad, we dived both Blizzard Ridge and Labyrinth and were a bit disappointed. That night we bbq'd some T-bone steak - again very yummy.
Yummy T-bone
Saturday and we were due to go out on the dive boat again but decided to pay the extra and go snorkeling with the whale sharks. Steve was grumpy as he did not want to go - said he did not want to video "snorkel soup" as there was bound to be too many snorkelers! However only ten snorkelers were allowed in with the shark at one time - that's nine too many as far as Steve was concerned! There were three whale sharks in all, the largest was around 7m. Rupan took some great photos - almost bumping straight into one as it sneaked up - but sadly no video as Grumpy Steve sat on the boat! That night we visited one of the only bars in Exmouth - Pot Shots. It was a bit feral, the speakers "pumped" out country and western music and schools of mullet swaggered through to the bar.
Sunday and we were back diving again - Steve was a lot happier. This time we took the speedy RIB to the Muiron Islands some 10 nautical miles of the north west cape. The viz was a lot better and we dived Fraggle Rock and Key Hole. The hard and soft coral was amazing and we saw lots of turtles.
