NAD-Lembeh Highlights May 2018
This month’s highlight are truly special because it doesn’t happen every day that we see a Whaleshark, Rhinopia, lots of Sargassum Frogfish and Flamboyant Cuttlefish eggs hatching diving in Lembeh!
Sargassum Season
The season is changing in Lembeh which means the winds are now coming from the South and the water temperature has dropped by a degree or two – nothing to worry about, 26-27 degrees celsius is still toasty for normal people. As a result, a lot of Sargassum sea weed together with over two dozens of Sargassum Frogfish has collected in our little bay a few days ago.
NO GLOVES at NAD – the come back!
Starting in 2014, NAD had already banned the use of dive gloves. In the past year however, we’ve listened to people which we probably shouldn’t have done. Based on some guest feedback, we decided to be more lenient with gloves and trust that not the gloves as such are bad but the person wearing them.
As a result, we have now seen that people who talked about being good divers and wearing gloves, would still cause more damage than if they did not wear gloves. Therefore, we will no longer allowing people to dive with gloves at NAD Lembeh.
Making Friends with a Goby
I’ve only recently started enjoying taking pictures of gobies. There’s around 500 different species only in the Indo-Pacific region but one of my favorites is the Magnificent Shrimp Goby. With its beautiful dorsal fin, almost like a sail, and the beautiful pattern on it, it’s very photogenic. The shrimp goby usually shares a burrow with, turns out to be quite pretty too: Randall’s Pistol Shrimp are brightly colored in red, white and yellow.
NAD-Lembeh Highlights April 2018
Although April is still considered our low season here in Lembeh, we can’t tell by the amount of critters and especially Frogfish we’ve been spotting lately. Several Hairy Frogfish on a few different dive sites, Giant Frogfish in all kinds of colors and a whole portfolio of both Warty and Painted Frogfish in varying sizes have been seen.
Busy Dive Day With Stenli And Paulus
To say that my dives with Paulus and Stenli are always a bit “stressful” sounds so negative, it’s of course positive stress 😉 However you just can’t stay with your subject for more than 5 minutes because sure enough one of them will find another highlight on the dive to shoot!
Reducing Plastic – Every Little Helps!
We’re constantly thinking of more ways to reduce plastic and have just implemented a few additional changes around the resort.
Wide Angle Wednesday
Since the conditions at the dive sites in the North of Lembeh are perfect at the moment, I have been focusing mainly on wide angle photography. Sites like Yiko Yansi, Dante’s Wall, California Dreaming, Angel’s Windows and Pulau Putus offer some fantastic wall, coral reef and cavern dives! Although diving in Lembeh is dominated by finding small critters and creatures, they can also be found on sites where both wide angle and macro subjects are present.
NAD in Garuda Inflight Magazine
We’ve had the honor to welcome Tommy Schultz, editor for the Garuda inflight magazine “Colours” at NAD. As a result, he has put together a great article about diving in Lembeh and with one of the most experienced dive guides. Paulus started his dive career almost 30 years ago with muck diving pioneer Larry Smith and we’re proud to call him the Supervisor of our dive team.
Blue-Ringed Octopuses Getting Lucky
We’ve been spotting several Blue-Ringed Octopuses in the last week and to top it off, I’ve found a couple mating yesterday. Not sure if mating is seasonal since I couldn’t find any reliable information anywhere – the last pair I’ve seen was in October last year, which makes me think that Blue-Ringed mate all year round.