Subic Bay Plane Wrecks

Sorry for the lack of posts from Subic. Although I enjoyed the diving there very much I didn't manage to take many pictures that I've been happy with. Here are a few from some of the plane wrecks around the bay anyway - I'm not thrilled with any of these but want to get something up...



I finally dragged myself away from Subic Bay on Saturday and am now in Dumaguete (actually Dauin, a bit south of there but this area is usually just referred to as Dumaguete so that's what I'll be calling it). I expect the diving here to be more photo friendly so hopefully I should be posting more again. I am still hoping to find enough decent pictures from Subic to get one more post up from there too at some point but we'll see.

LST Wreck

I'm still enjoying the wreck diving in Subic. In fact I'm probably going to extend my stay a few days longer than I'd originally planned.

Photography on the other hand is proving somewhat difficult with poor visibility, lack of light due to depth, and lots of particles in the water. Oh well, here are a few pictures from the LST (Landing Ship Tank) wreck anyway. I've dived this wreck four times now although all of these pictures are from the first dive.

Mototi!

OK, time for the last post from Ambon. Unusually, I'm posting two pictures of the same type of critter (different individuals though). These are both Mototi (Poisonous Ocellated) octopus which was one of the things on my list of rare animals I'd hadn't seen yet. By the end of the Ambon trip I'd seen 4 individuals across 2 dive sites each of which displayed distinctly different behavior which was kind of interesting.



Anyway, so far I'm enjoying the wreck diving in Subic Bay. Should have some pictures up in a few days.

More Ambon Critters.

Yeah, the first one is yet another shrimp picture, but these are somewhat notable shrimp so I've holding off on posting them. I have a bit of a history with failing to get pictures of Coleman shrimp - I saw my first pair in Komodo in 2012 a day or two before I came down with Dengue and never got around to doing anything with those pictures. Then I saw my second pair in Komodo in 2014 during the period when I was without a camera. So actual Coleman shrimp pictures have been a long time coming.

All that said, my favorite of these is the middle picture of the three cuttlefish and I'm also happy to finally have a decent picture of a baby puffer fish to post as well.



I wouldn't expect any pictures from Nusa Lembongan - I didn't take many and, although I haven't even looked at them yet, I'm pretty sure I didn't get much of anything worth posting. In fact overall Nusa Lembongan was a huge disappointment this year as the resort I dove with doesn't dive the fast drift sites that make Lembongan so much fun anymore. And since it's too early for Mola Molas the other main draw was out as well. So we mostly just dove the easy slopes on the north side of Nusa Penida. Although they're loaded with beautiful corals that wasn't remotely what I went there for. However I did manage to find the new location of the original shop I dove with back in 2009. Now that I've found them again I plan to swing back through on my return in the fall to dive with people who know how to dive Nusa Lembongan properly.

That's it for now. I'll have one more Ambon post up in a few days featuring the critter I was most excited to see. In the meantime leave Indonesia tomorrow to start making my way to the Philippines although I'm spending two nights in Kuala Lumpur on the way so I won't be back in the water until the 12th.

Not Quite Shrimp in Ambon

I'd say it's about well past time for the first Mantis Shrimp picture of this trip. This is not the greatest picture I've ever taken of one but it's the first I've ever seen with eggs so I want to post it. I'm thrilled with the picture of the Skeleton Shrimp(s) though since it's the first decent one I've managed to take. Probably helped that this was a pretty good sized one at @ 1 cm long although it still took more than the usual amount of fiddling in Lightroom to get this to come out.