December 24 - 29, 2003
Dive Trip to

MANADO
Sulawesi, INDONESIA

with Geok, Dom, and Victor from Singapore

 

 

I bought a little Canon IXUS 400 Digital Camera and Underwater Housing in Singapore as a Christmas present to myself. Once in the water in Indonesia I took to this new hobby, well, like a fish to water and popped off these shots. First time doing underwater photography. Not bad for a little camera that fits in my palm!

Each night we downloaded the shots to my laptop and pumped them up in Photoshop and compressed them for this here web presentation (as to not pig out on your slow bandwidth.)

 

Here's a little coral shrimp.

 

Here's the four of us!

 

Left to right:

Vanimal, Geok, Dominic, and Victor.

 

 

Here's Geok!

 

Geok and her buddies had these massive cameras. I just had a little tiny thing. The good thing about digital is INSTANT GRATIFICATION! We had to wait until we got back to Singapore to see Geok, Dominic, and Victor's slides.

 

 

I stalked a Big Batfish. He was about 2 feet tall. He was quite cooperative actually. He smiled here for me.

 

The Nudibranchs were all having sex everywhere. Sorry for the intrusion.

 

 

2 Eels

2 Shrimps

and see if you can see the camoflauged Scorpionfish in the lower right corner.

I didn't even see him until I downloaded the photo.

 

Here's a little baby puffer.

 

These guys were so cool.

Manado is full of interesting critters that you just don't see too often in other parts of the world.

 

Here's a great big Lionfish.

 

Blue Ribbon Eels are da bomb!

 

Crazy colors can be found underwater. Imagine if you had a room in your house decorated with these colors?

 

Mr. Porcupine Puffer has the most amazing psychedelic eyes.

 

 

Two great Lionfish.

 

Scorpionfish? Lionfish? You decide.

 

Damn nice looking guy.

 

Flounders are interesting fishes and they taste good too.

 

The famous Manley Stingray.... blue spotted finish.

 

 

Loads of Anenome but it was hard to find Nemo on film as he moves around so fast. Here some little co-starring Cardinalfish moved in to grab a scene.

 

Here I finally managed to grab some Clownfish along with a spare crab.

 

The little Canon wasn't bad on Shrimp macros....

 

 

Here's a mean looking 
Cockatoo Waspfish.

 

Mr. Cuttlefish could not escape my lens. They are also tasty.

 

This is a Decorator Crab. They pick up pieces of stuff on the sea bed and disguise themselves with whatever they can find. I bet you don't believe me that there is a critter under that soft sponge and coral, but there really is.

 

These ringed Pipefish dudes are related to seahorses.

 

We were lucky to find a Flying Gurnard.

Also quite rare to spot.

 

Also in the rare department, a Dragonet.

He's neat.

 

And a nice Crocodilefish makes an appearance.

 

 

Spotfin Lionfish were all over the place. They are really something, eh?

 

Frogfish are so ugly that they are cute. They hop around on their little front fins.

 

Here's his pal, the black Froggie.

 

 

Here's Geok stalking a poor little Rhinopia with her BIG CAMERA.

 

And of course since those huge analog cameras only have 36 shots on the roll and you cannot change your film underwater so once Geok shot her roll off she would of course come grab my camera to take some shots as we had a 512MB Compact Flash card in it which could take hundreds of shots, plenty for everyone to share in the fun.

Geok captured this little shell.

 

The flash turned this little Goatfish into a pretty sight.

 

Pretty green coral like this makes a perfect nursery for little shy fishes.

 

Another Seahorse relative, I think this guy is a Double-Ended Pipefish even though I only got one end of him.

 

Many fish such as this handsome Lionfish were very cooperative posing for me.

 

A porcupine in the hand is worth two in the bush.

 

Another beauty.

Who dreamed up these things? They are so gorgeous.

 

 

This tiedyed Lionfish is on his way to a Grateful Dead concert.

 

Isn't he?

 

Some little fish are just too cute!

 

This little Hawkfish also falls in the cute category.

 

 

This Mantis Shrimp on the run was fortunately more scared of me than I was of him. These bastards can break your camera lens or smack you hard enough to bust your finger as they can give you a serious karate chop with their front claws. No kidding. You want to watch out for these guys.

 

The Pegasus Sea Moth was another rare guy to see. He hopped around the bottom like a wounded bird. Which I guess is why they also call him "Wounded Sparrow".

 

Bad Ass Sea Snake!

 

This puffer was GIANT. He was at least 2 feet long. Biggest one I ever saw.

 

Closeup of Mr. Rhinopia, a face only a mother could love.

 

Mr. Rhinopia (Scorpionfish) in all his glory. He's a weirdo ain't he? But don't tell him I said that...

 

And here's his friend the pink weedy Rhinopia. Totally rare but we saw two of 'em on that dive. Amazing!

 

I hope you have nightmares about strange Scorpionfish.

 

 

Again with the weird... a Leaf Scorpionfish.

 

We were not lacking weird fish to shoot on this trip.

 

A nice normal shot of a nice normal Squirrelfish, but he's kinda prettier on camera than in real life with the flash capturing his iridescence.

 

Star on star....

 

 

The Toxic Urchin is lit up like a Las Vegas signboard marquee to warn you that he is toxic. Fabulous!

 

 

I had to be careful while flying around with this Yellowmargin Trigger as these mean assholes can take a bite out of your arm or leg. This guy was so big he could have probably eaten my camera.

 

Since it was Christmas Day, the carolers were out in force.

"We Three Eels of Orient Are..."

 

This yellow Seahorse looks like he is gonna be a daddy soon.

 

The Vanimal does enjoy scuba diving.

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