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AIR PACIFIC has just announced a fantastic fare sale to Fiji! Tickets must be issued by June 30, 2009 with travel completed by December 30, 2009. Airfare rate (before taxes) is $565 per person! There are LOTS of great hotels with special DEALS available so call me and we'll get you to Fiji!

Sadly, all good things must come to an end...we've packed up our dive and photo gear and settled up our bills...it must be time to head home!

We did, however, have 2 fantastic last dives yesterday. We all loved California Dreaming with its breathtaking soft corals. That reef rivals some of the best we've seen from Fiji with yellows, oranges, reds, purples, lavendar and white soft corals. Lots of schooling fish as well as the little stuff. Ronald found us a tiny, less than 2-in boxer crab with eggs....those are the kinds of dives we dream about when we're in the middle of a Michigan snowstorm!

After we finished diving, we took a Resort boat over to Bitung Port and visited a local zoo. It's not very big but it's very clean and well organized. We saw the tiny tarsis monkeys up close and personal, lots of different indigenous beautiful birds, monkeys, baboons, a python snake & a few cobra safely distant in a cage..the really weird looking babi rusa which is a pig with horns! We also got to visit with some of the local children and watch them playing football and just being kids. They love to get their pictures taken so it's fun to show them the photos afterwards and hear the giggles.

We're all packed up and just waiting for the staff to load our stuff in the boat. This staff is the BEST in the world, bar none! From the fabulous dive guides and boatmen to the lovely staff at the Reception desk and in the dining room. The cooks are fantastic and cater to every taste and diet. We couldn't ask for a better land-based experience and we all can't wait to come back again.....join us next time! From Lembeh Resort sampa jumpa lagi (see you next time!)

Terima kasih, everyone......

Yesterday's 3rd dive was a number of "firsts" for us....first time we saw all 3 phases of a ribbon eel, first time to actually see the yellow female and lastly and the most fun....first time to ever see a free-swimming ribbon eel! Ribbon eels are about the thickness of a pencil and we generally see anywhere from 1" to 8" of them poking out of their holes in the sand/rubble. Yesterday we were on a mission to see a yellow one. Ribbon eels start out black as juveniles, turn blue with a yellow face and a yellow stripe down their backs as adult males and when the need for reproduction arises, one of the males turns all yellow and becomes a female! We've been told that the females mate once and then after giving birth, die, so they are not commonly seen. Well, yesterday we saw the black, then the blue, then the yellow and then the BANGING started......Abner was rattling his rattle, Bill was pulling on my fins....I knew something awesome had been found!

Bob managed to be "in the right place at the right time"! He found a free-swimming yellow phase ribbon eel out in the open. This one was between SIX & EIGHT FEET long! And if you imagine the Olympic gymnasts with their ribbon routines, that's what it's like watching a ribbon eel swim....they coil and stretch just like the gymnastic ribbons! We all whooped and high-fived each other when it finally decided to find a hole and duck into it.

We also saw two great frogfish on that dive, one was a very unusual orange color so here's a shot of that one as well.

Our diving is now winding down...we have only two dives left on this trip. They've all been fantastic but some are always more memorable than others and the ribbon eel dive rates right up there.

After we finish diving today, it's time to try and dry everything out. We're also going across the Straits to a small local zoo this afternoon. It's hard to believe we've been here 12 days...where do the days go??

Last night's dive was at one of our favorite dive sites, Nudi Falls and it didn't disappoint us! Lots of critters foraging in the sand for dinner including all kinds of decorator crabs, shrimp, pipefish & even a red frogfish paddling his way about the reef! It's a spectacular wall with loads of colorful sponges and corals and at night when you shine your lights on the reef you see red eyes everywhere from all the shrimp jumping about. 70 minutes is a normal night dive in Lembeh...that's how long the flashlights and aiming lights can hold out...after that, it's dark so it's time to surface.

We had a most interesting 2nd dive today as well. We went a bit farther north in the Straits and the dive sites have more corals than some of the closer sites. We saw the largest patch of beautiful, healthy staghorn coral we've ever seen and it was loaded with schools of at least six types of beautiful cardinal fish, the most striking was yellow with blue eyes! Then we encountered something we've never seen before....a feeding Triton shell. He was almost finished eating a blue sea star. Their usual diet is crown-of-thorns sea stars but we've only seen one crown-of-thorns here on this trip (which is a GOOD thing), so they are obviously searching for other types of sea stars to munch on....it was a huge animal....probably 2-1/2 feet long by 1-1/2 feet tall so it was an impressive shell to say the least. Thank goodness we saw it with its animal still living and prospering, not in a shell shop somewhere!

We're winding down our diving....we only have one more full day tomorrow and then our last 2 dives on Friday morning. We've seen some amazing creatures but there are STILL things on our "check list" that haven't been checked off....maybe in the next 6 dives, but if not - there's always next time!

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!

Night diving in Lembeh Straits gives NEW meaning to things that go BUMP in the night! You've all seen conch shells in the stores..well here, we watch the animals that live in them inch their way across the sand! Also found an interesting shell animal that I didn't recognize...shell is kinda flat & wavy and the animal moves on it's "foot" which looks like a paddle coming out of the front of the shell below one of its eyes!

We went out for the house mandaranfish dish. You swim out just before dusk to catch them in their "courting". Males & females run through the coral trying to find the right partner for the evening! We saw lots and lots of courting but little mating...guess their signals just weren't meshing last night. When they mate, they choose their partner and come together and move up 6-8 inches into the water column to mate. Their sperm/eggs mix and drift off in the currents, hoping eluding the ever-present cardinal fish who are waiting for an egg dinner.

Yopie led us to a small coral head and pointed out four "strings". Apparently these strings are pygmy pipehorses! Good thing the camera lens has better eyes than I! Any diver would just swim right by and think they were dust or algae hanging on the reefs!

Anyway, it was a great dive ended by a baby hairy octopus right in the shallows off the steps leading up to the dive shop. Don't pass up a night dive in Lembeh...you never know what critters await you!

Off to Bangka today....an hour or so north for some "blue water and soft coral dives".....see you tomorrow with more pictures.