Monday's dives took Bill, Susan, Bob & I up about an hour and a half north of the Resort up the Straits to Bangka Island. Rather than diving in the black volcanic sand, we dove coral reefs for a day. The remainder of the group did the same trip on Sunday.

The reefs are prolific up there and there are many different things to be seen. The corals and sponges are healthy & huge! The reefs are swarming with fish....all kinds, sizes & shapes. On one of the dives we dropped in right over a huge bumphead parrotfish. Unfortunately they are very, very shy so as soon as he saw us, he booked out into the blue! We did three magnificent dives up there with lunch on the boat so we had a very full day. We saw this giant frogfish just perched up on the sponge waiting for his lunch to swim by!

Back in the Straits late afternoon, we barely had time for cup of hot tea before heading off to another fabulous night dive! It's amazing the critters that like the dark of night for their food foraging. Benefit is, they're out in the open for all to see!

Sightings last night included a beautiful single squid, red ghostpipefish, crabs, shrimp galore, finger dragonets, ambon scorpionfish, several types of flounder and the highlight of the dive was

the stargazer! An hour just flies by when you're having fun at 70' on a night dive!

Back in the Straits today for all of us....looking for the elusive mimic octopus or wonderpus, more frogfish, harlequin shrimp...we still have critters to "check off our lists" and our time remaining here is starting to diminish!