Under the Sea…..Day 2
How can we begin to tell you about the underwater kingdom
here…the corals, the colors, the crazy strange creatures. Our two dives this
morning were cliff-drift dives, meaning we followed the current as we passed this
enormous wall of corals. When the current changed, we just went a little
shallower or deeper and switched direction. On occasion the current is so
strong that it shoots you forward, you don’t have to swim at all….it must be
somewhere in the ballpark of what it feels like to fly.
The reefs are so alive here that you could spend an entire
dive in one spot and still be overstimulated. “In the blue” (which is the deep
blue abyss all around the reef) was hundreds of schools of fish….. schools of
trigger fish with electric blue tails, schools of pyramid butterfly fish that
are bright orange with a white diamond, little silver fish, and some so far off
in the distance you could only make out their silhouettes. On the second dive
we saw 8 (!) sea turtles! One was so close to me, I could have kissed it! To
see a sea turtle gracefully swimming right at you…its front legs slowly,
methodically going up and down…its huge-dinosaur head and intelligent brown,
almost cat-like eyes looking right at you. It was moving. Then we “happened
upon” the most enormous turtle I have ever seen…5 feet long and 3 feet
wide…just hanging out on a little ledge of the reef..eating coral.
UNBELIEVABLE! I could watch them all day long. We saw some out in the blue too.
These were the first sea turtles that Jeremy has ever seen in person. He cannot
come up with words that capture his experience. He does note that the diversity
of corals…some stretching 6 feet across that were the highlight of his
day.
A Break from Under the Sea
After we returned from our morning dives, we had this
outrageous thunderstorm and RAIN. I had booked an hour massage with an
Indonesian woman for right after lunch (conveniently during the thunderstorm).
No question, this was the best $10 I ever spent! I have been seriously
considering how to bring her home with me! Then we took a nap and I went on a
night dive. Jeremy was a little waterlogged and needed some land time, so he
did his photography stuff while I went out in the boat.
Night Dive
I have only ever done two other night dives…both in
Australia. If diving on a reef during the day is like being in another world,
then diving on a reef at night is like being in another galaxy! We each had our
own flashlights, otherwise everything is pitch black and all kinds of creatures
come out. You might expect that it is hard to see…because it is so dark, which
is true, but in some ways it is easier to see. The light from the flashlight
reflects more accurately the colors of the corals and fish. What looks mostly
grayish to the naked eye, might actually be rich with color that is washed out
by the lack of light. So during underwater diving, everything is dark except
the beam of the flashlight which shows a ridiculously colorful world!
We had barely decended from the boat and we spotted an
octopus! It started out a light blue color as it moved across the sand. The
head seems to be gliding along while the legs just keep folding up under it. It
“walked” its way to a rough piece of white coral and magically the octopus turned
white and prickly…JUST EXACTLY LIKE THE CORAL! If it had already been on the
coral when we got down there, we probably would never have seen it! We saw
another huge sea turtle, cuttle fish, and all kinds of crabs. (9 turtles in one
day….TURTLE POWER! J) One crab was like the size of a cereal box and had
a bunch of coral attached to it’s back for camoflague! If it hadn’t been
moving, who knows if we would have seen it! We saw a bunch of shrimp, sea
cucumbers, scorpion fish, and creepy worms! And who knows what critters we
missed along the way! On our way back to the island, there was so much
bioluminescents in the water that we stirred up by our boat passing through
that the wake on either side of the boat was literally glowing! It looked like
there were blue fireflies in the water all around us! What a cool experience!
Last night we had the most impressive thunderstorm…it
literally woke us up and just POURED for hours! This morning, everything is
lush and wet and the sun is out! We are headed to breakfast before our morning dives (this is our last full day in Bunaken). We don’t
have many underwater pictures from day 2 as we were 60 ft underwater most of
the day and our camera only works to 40ft.
THIS IS WHERE WE SLEEP
THIS IS WHERE WE SLEEP
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