Manado - April 07 (1)

Wah, so fast our Manado trip is over.... When is our next dive trip? Tioman is good also. Wanna get wet~~!

Here's our trip highlight. These photos are from me Michelle and Gabriel. Will post others when I received their photos. (For reference, photos here are marked with our names. Please go photobucket to download those without names)

Gabriel's photos : http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/divocean/Manado_Mar07_Gab/
Michelle's photos : http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/divocean/Manado_Mar07_Mich/
(I don't know why my memory stops in MARCH... I kept thinking our trip was in Mar... thus the album name is Mar07... but too troublesome to change now. so i just leave it as it is)

On the way to Lumba-lumba Resort. It was Good Friday. There were red crosses everywhere. Manado is a very interesting place, a small place but lots of cars, and lots of good Japanese cars. AND, they have a church in almost every 500m~! Amazing, and those churches are very pretty. Can tell they spent a lot of their money in building churches.

By the way, Gabriel celebrated his birthday in the plane. I shot a short video using his video recorder, didn't have the photo in my camera... Will upload it when I have it. SilkAir gave him a cake, quite tasty.

Arrived at the resort, having welcome drink. It'll be better if the drink is freezing cold.

We go diving~ Look at the calm sea, almost mirror-like calm. Makes you feel so peaceful and calm looking at the sea. Here were Alex, George and Philip.
There's a crab hiding in the feather star, it kept running... This was the best shot I've got.

So cute... a fish which looks like it has put on lipstick. hehe...

We never figure out what fish is this.. It was quiet big. This was at very shallow, maybe 5m.

This cute little fellow has got very nice pink colour. I wanted to shoot its sideway picture but it kept facing me... All 3 or 4 photos I've got is like this.

Snorkellers watching us watching them.


Little crabby hiding in coral.

Gabriel's favourite shot. A hawkfish. It's got a cute expression and feels like it's playing hide and seek.


Hairy hairy crabby.

"Birdie" on the move.. I don't know what fish is this.

There're bubbles coming out of Winnie's hood and I thought it was very cute :p
Yook Sau~ "007"...

Nice nudibranch.

A scorpion-posture-like shrimp... so funny...

"Birdie" again. Very funny thing, always in pair, the one behind will follow the exact movement of the one in front. But difficult photo subject... cos their comouflage is so good.

Very pretty nudibranch~

A big mouth it's got there.

Our favourite shot of the trip. Lizardfish eating pipefish.
I saw the pipefish behaving very quietly near the bottom, I hesitated whether to call Gab to take some photos of it. In the end, I decided not to and just take the picture by myself cos a pipefish is nothing unusual. Just when I was about to descend further near to it, "zoop!" the pipefish was eaten by the lizardfish! Amazing! I then frantically rang my bell to alert Gab.

Think it got startled a bit and the lizardfish turn the other way. By now Gab and I were on either side of it. The pipefish turned white colour.

I don't think the lizardfish can swallow the pipefish whole... so it's got no choice now... can't finish its meal and perhaps it thinks it's safer to hide in the sand.

But it managed to only submerged itself, the pipefish was exposed. You can see the lizardfish's eyes.. sooooo... funny... Poor pipefish, there's nothing it can do. Then Gab made a movement, the lizardfish got scared and spilt out the pipefish!!! and ran away. The pipefish's tail was bend. It still can swim, I think it will survive... Poor lizardfish... Gabriel made it lost its meal. hahaha... But the lizardfish was too greedy to think that he can swallow the pipefish whole...

Cow fish. Look at its eye... from this angle, it has got a love shape~~

Sun tanning on top of the boat~ We love this boat. Very comfy and entry and exit out of water is very easy.



I've never really see the sun actually sinks down to the horizon. In Tioman, it's always blocked by clouds. And now finally...
Too bad don't have a tele-lens to capture it nearer.


Colourful nudibranchs.

This is so cute~~

Lionfish at the grass patch. We love the grass patch, a lot of things to see.

Gab tried to wait for the shrimp to go into the eel's mouth but it didn't. And notice the small baby eel beside. Soooooooo cuteeee.... There were a lot of creatures around these pipes alone. A lot!

A fatty.....

Sea urchin's eye.

This makes a nice abstract picture.

Manado - April 07 (2)

Many of us took the photo of these creatures. Some kind of amphipod I think. They have bright orange colour, very cute.


One of my favourite photos of clownfish. It's got anemone and hard coral as the background instead of just anemone.

"Orang utan" crab again.

Funny looking crab... sooo.. cute....

This is... 一坨大便...

This coral looks like the "whomping willow" in Harry Potter. It's "arm" can catch things and pass it to its mouth in a very fast pace. Looks so weird.. like a plant that moves like an animal.

Snake eel. I wasn't sure whether it's a snake or an eel, thus I dare not go too near it...
Gab took this close up.

I love to see sun ray shines through the cloud... In Manado, the sun sets earlier than Singapore, thus when we came back from 3rd dive, it's already got evening sun. See how the sun ray shines directly on the surface of the ocean. Like there'll be an alien (Mr Bean?) being beamed down anytime. hahahaha....

The jetty at Lembeh STrait. 2 days before, some makcik came to our dive boat to sell us bracelets and t-shirts. We didn't have any money on us. They asked us to pay the next day, they'll come look for us. So the next day Gab brought the money plus a little bit extra in his dry bag. And he left the money there till the day we went Lembeh. And thank Goodness he brought out extra money and didn't take it out. We had to go toilet after a 2 hours' journey. And a visit to the toilet cost 2000 Rupiah.................... that's about S$0.35. Nobody had any money even the dive masters...................... Then I remembered Gab has got money in his dry bag... whew... thank goodness. We all expected the toilet must be super dirty. We were told that we cannot wear our slippers into the toilet, must go in bare foot. Lucky the toilet is really really clean. whew.... relieved... and because Gab's got the money, after a day's dive we came here again to have a very quick shower of fresh water. Wah, felt so good... as we still got a 2 hours car ride to endure...
I had the best lunch of all days there in Lembeh... we were served fishes. Everyday there're only 2 dishes, one meat and one extremely simple cooked vege. If you like it you're good, if you don't, then it's your business. I don't like their lunch. I didn't even have my lunch on the last day. Lucky I've got my chocolate.


Sunset at Lembeh Strait was very very nice~~~



Early morning, there was fog on the surface of the ocean. Made the mountain looked like it's floating.

The whole family of clownfish were looking at me.

Wonder this is the father or mother. It must be very very old.... Look at its face..

This little fellow was alone in the anemone. Soooooo... tiny.. soooooo.. cute.....

Lots and lots of moray babies in the grass patch. This one wasn't too shy. I used my pointer to shove the grass away in order to take this pic, and it didn't swim away. I like~

This lobster was hidden inside some coral....All I can see was his 2 feelers when I stuck my head in it. So I just anyhow pushed my camera in it and anyhow point and shoot. Who knows, this turn out to be a nice pic~ hahaha.. so happy... But because we weren't allowed to wear gloves, and I was trying to stable myself... I pushed my hands against the coral... and walau... got stung... Damn itchy until now... But it's worth it.

Gab and I chased this little fellow here and there... playing hide and seek... this is the ONLY photo I've got.

Weird looking fish~ so funny~

Guess what, I used Andy's polaroid sunglasses to take this photo. hehe.. The reef looks nicer this way.

Guy came with us to the trip instead of John SMallwood. What a surprise~ I didn't believe at all that he's going with us when he was at the airport with the rest. haha...

Doreen and Philip.

Me and Shirley.

Shirley and Andy. The resort used coconut to make the light.
Alex and George.


Our birthday cake. Gabriel, me, Alex and George celebrated our birthdays during a dive trip for the second time~~

I don't have the group photos in my camera. So, have to wait for other photos to come~