Shrimp in Ambon

Today was my last day of diving in Ambon and tomorrow I start making my way back to Bali then on to Nusa Lembongan. I haven't been there since 2012 and am quite looking forward to returning even though it's too early for Mola Molas. Should get a chance to see some Mantas though and I'm really looking forward to some of the intense drift dives.

Here are a few pictures of various species of shrimp taken in Abmon. These show an Emperor shrimp on a Sea Cucumber, a Crinoid partner shrimp, and a Dragon shrimp on some soft coral. I particularly like the Emperor shrimp and the Dragon shrimp was kind of exciting as they're very rare and it's only the second I've seen (the other was in Alor in 2012).

Timing is everything.

The diving in Ambon continues to amaze and I'm accumulating a good number of pictures that I'll dribble out over the next couple of weeks. My next stop after Ambon will be Nusa Lembongan where I anticipate taking fewer pictures since it's won't be primarily macro diving. And after that will be Subic Bay in the Philippines which is mostly going to be wreck diving.

In the meantime, I want to post this one picture specifically. Although Rhinopias are all over the place in Ambon overall they are pretty rare. And on top of that I was lucky enough to catch this one yawning right at the beginning of yesterday afternoon's dive at Laha 2.



In other news we managed to find the macro lens I dropped which was nice. By 'we' I mean my dive guide of course - I had nothing to do with it other than being in the same general area.

Ambon is pretty amazing.

Diving in Ambon is everything I was hoping it would be. Here's the first batch of pictures before I head out for the afternoon dive...



Tomorrow I get to go back to this morning's second dive site to hunt for the macro lens that fell off my camera housing at the end of the dive. Because of course *something* had to happen to my camera.

Padangbai And Candidasa

I have a few minutes before I catch a bus back to Kuta so here are a few more pictures from my last few days diving. I've been staying in Candidasa, which is a new spot for me - I've passed through it before but never stayed to dive here. Diving has been pretty good with lots of macro and some very healthy reefs although I'm still feeling like a camera newbie.



Tomorrow I fly to Ambon, my first real destination of this trip. Should be mostly macro diving so hopefully I'll have lots of pictures to post.

Lets get this blog going...

So, I finally decided to start using my camera in full manual mode after years of shooting in various programmed auto modes. It's like learning to take pictures all over again - thus the delay in posting. I'm not thrilled with anything I've taken yet but I really do want to get things rolling so here are a few pictures from Tulamben that are at least adequate. Nothing really new and exciting here, although I was very happy to see the Orangutan crab today. On my last trip in 2014 I was looking all over the place for them but only saw 2 in the entire six months of diving.



Tomorrow I'm off to Candidasa, a town little bit south of here. That'll be a new destination for me - somehow I've never managed to stop there in all my trips to Bali.