Last dive pics

20/10/2014 1 Von andiline

I am back home already and I think my colleagues would be shocked if I showed up in the office before 9 AM (let’s see if they still know who I am… 😉 ). Since I got up at 6 AM this morning I prepared the pics from the last dive-days. I still need to upload the last pics from Sydney. Probably going to do that either tonight or tomorrow…

Let’s get back to the last day in Lembeh. We had planned an explorer dive and it turned out that this was a really good place. We found some cool stuff like pygmy denise, hairy octopus, giant mooray, boxer crab, little amphipods and more. Again I saw stuff that I hadn’t seen before. The last two dive days were really amazing in this respect. After the dive we went back on the boat and were talking about one of the other divers hitting his leg at the ladder when he had come out of the water the day before. His leg had started to feel strange during the explorer dive and you could see a swelling below the wetsuit. So he set down with his leg elevated on the bench. While we were talking to him the boat went to the next dive-site and all was well. But then he said ‚Something is wrong with my sight too.‘, he rolled his eyes and slowly passed out. One of his friends called ‚Guys, we need help!‘ and all the guys sprang into immediate actions. The guides got the oxygen while the captn started the boat. I had a look at the diver lying there and actually I thought he was dead  since he had his unseeing eyes open and didn’t blink. Then I saw that his belly was moving up and down so it was clear that fortunately he was alive. We were further away from the resort than usual so it took us 20 or 25 minutes to get back. By the time we were back at the resort he was already much better and then he was able to leave the boat on his own (but the guides held him just to be on the safe side). That was quite a scary morning but the NAD-crew on the boat impressed us guests by reacting like clockwork and in a calm, reassuring and effective way. Turned out that the diver had been dehydrated. He was such a sweet man (in his early 70ies I would say) and I am really happy that he was well again later.

After the diver was better we went for a second dive close to the resort which was my last one for this vacation. Again we found some cool stuff and like on the first dive I ran out of time/air when I just had an interesting object in front of my camera. On the first dive it was a boxer crab while on the second it was something like a hairy shrimp but twice as big and it doesn’t seem to have a lot of hairs. I don’t have very good pics of either but you will find them below anyway. Spent the afternoon chatting with other guests and drying my stuff. The next morning we left for the airport where I had to buy some smaller part of the plane as penalty for too much luggage… not sure which part is mine but some must as I had to pay a lot of money (420 USD). Now I am going to try to find lighter dive-gear..

Isn’t she a beauty?

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Giant mooray – I have seen them before but wouldn’t have expected one in critter paradise 😉

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Pygmy denise (pregnant) – it did turn around all the time but since it can’t close it eyes I didn’t take too many pics

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Red hairy shrimp with eggsOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

LobsterOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Have never seen a blue star fish this big beforeOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

HAIRY OCTOPUS! 🙂 This guy was maybe 3 cm…OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

And the hairy octopus again. Can you see now why it is so difficult to find him?OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

This nudi was maybe 3 mm… I didn’t have enough time to put my macro lense on to take close-upsOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Boxer crabOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I saw this red thing lying on the ground and it was so small that I wasn’t sure if it was a nudibranch. So just in case I took pics. And it turned out that it has a lot of flatworms on it (even if it is just a piece of coral)OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

This one was maybe 1 cm…

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As well as this one…

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And again a nudi that was busy laying eggs. Here you can see how the band of eggs come out of her body. This time ne shrimp feasting on it though.OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I think this nudi believes that it is a horse….OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

And another 1 cm-nudi….OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Coconut-octopus babyOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERANudi

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Have still to look up what it is. Simon said it belongs to the hairy shrimp family and the form certainly suggests that. It doesn’t have hair though and it is bigger than the ones that we have found so far.OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

And a beautiful red clownfishOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

So that’s it from Lembeh for this time. Some more pics from Sydney and then I am going to start working on a video about Vanuatu. I made some small videos which put together are what for me is the essence of Vanuatu… so stay tuned… 🙂