After finishing off in Bunaken, we were off to Lembeh. As TwoFish had a dive center there, we decided to continue to stay and dive with them. The transfer to Lembeh went smoothly - in fact, I didnt even have to disassemble my camera: I just pick it up and carried it on my lap on the boats and put it on the floor of the sedan that was transferring us. We had stopped to catch up on some work emails, and so got into Lembeh only in time for the evening/Mandarin dive, which neither of us decided to do. It was a mini reunion of sorts, as we bumped into 3 other people who had been diving with us in Bunaken with 2Fish.
We started diving the next day, and Lembeh lived up to its potential. I have to say, "muck diving" is too harsh a term for this sort of diving. I was expecting a lot more litter and refuse on the bottom, but it was not that much different from the plastic bags and bottles floating along in the Bunaken waters. I was tempted to ask about the sewage systems of the various shore-side villages but in the end decided not to... some things are best left unknown (see box, Pandora). Most of the dives were on the greyish-black sand, and consisted of periods of swimming around over nothing, mixed with frentic periods of photography. I havent bothered logging dives for over a decade now, so I cannot do a site by site description, but some sites had more of the "swimming around" bits and other sites, my head was on a swivel trying to figure out what to shoot: the subject in front of me, what my wife was pointing out or what the DM was trying to show me. Lembeh also has some white sand dives and some reefs, but frankly, other than nudibranches and some big crabs, there isn't a whole lot going on there. The black sand is where the Lembeh specialties - ie, the freak show - are to be found.
Some dives I took <10 shots, while other dives, I took as many as 40-50 shots (which, for me, is a LOT). Despite the site to site variance (and in some cases, the same site was good one day, and not as productive another day), I got a LOT of shots. On the whole, I took more shots here than anywhere else I've photographed... including Sipadan & Mabul.
TwoFish's resort in Lembeh is still a work in progress and they only have 6 rooms there. Due to a scheduling conflict, after 2 nights, they only had a budget room for us (they had informed us of this beforehand) - to be honest, while the other rooms were nice enough, the budget room was less than stellar (as I said, a work in progress), so we decided to move to Bastiano's for a day. Bastiano's is a much more polished/upscale resort run by a friendly expat American, Harley. Due to bunch of reasons (hot water, better food, etc), we ended up moving to Bastiano's for the remainder of our trip. Harley arranged a private guide for the 2 of us (just as 2Fish had) and our diving continued uninterrupted, which was the main thing. Incidentally, we also met Aengus, a fellow Wetpixelite (Wetpixelier? Wetpixeler?) there - heya Aengus!
As far as resorts go, there is no contest - Bastiano's is definitely a much nicer resort, with a more varied menu and better suited to catering to photographers (we would discuss our target subjects with Harley and plan dives accordingly). However, I also enjoyed our time at 2Fish - they are owned by divers (which strikes a personal chord with my wife and I, who also run our own little dive shop) and are trying hard to compete with larger, well-funded businesses owned by business-people. Their resort in Lembeh is progressing and once it is complete, I am sure it will offer a very good value to visiting divers.
In terms of quality of guides, both operations were very good. I thought the Bastianos guides were a little more polished and knowledgable about the lesser-known species, but a flip side was that even though there were 3 groups, each with their own guides (Pritha and I, Aengus and Adriano, another guest there), we all swam around pretty close to each other and so there was a bit of traffic jam at photo sites. Without meaning to, I think there were quite a few times when we got in each other's way, I am sure. On the other hand, with 2Fish, we were on our own - we never saw any of the other 2 groups on the boat with us. It was a bit of a tradeoff, and ultimately, didnt really make a big difference: I got great shots with both operators.
With both operators, the dive formula was the same: early morning departure for 2-tank dive, return for lunch, afternoon dive, mandarin dive and night dive. I really wanted to do a mandarin dive here as Peter, a fellow diver who was also in Bunaken with us, had mentioned that they were a lot easier to photograph here. However, there were also a lot more people at the mandarin site and I gathered that it was difficult to really spend the time getting the perfect shot. So I left the mandarins for another trip.
My target species here were the ambon, lacy & paddleflap scorpionfish and the mimic octopus, along with pygmy seahorses and ghost pipefish. Pritha really wanted to see a proper seahorse. I got all of these except the mimic - the other divers saw it on an afternoon dive that I sat out, and on another dive, a diver from our boat who got separated from the others saw it courtesy the guide from some other dive operator. In a way, I am glad I missed the mimic - I have about had it with all the shots of mimic octopii in the middle of the water column. They are disruptive and downright abusive to the animal and not only do we photographers/divers as a group condone it, we actively go out and try to get a similar shot as well. Enough of that, I say!
Some of the other highlights for me - pegasus (sea moths), robust ghost pipefish, various scorpionfish (a lot of which I still have to ID), spending 25 minutes watching a coconut (veined) octopus playing hide and seek from behind its shell and lots of interesting nunibranches.
All my images were taken with the 20D/Sigma 50mm macro in AF mode/2 Inon Z240s. On most of the shots, I also used the Backscatter Macromate 2x adapter, which can either act as a doubler or increase the working distance (depending on how you want to use this). In my opinion, this combo - 50mm macro and the Macromate - allow the photographer to have the best of both worlds: the flexibility of a 50mm lens and the working distance of a 100mm lens. Certainly, my 100mm hasnt been on the camera once (except for the mandarin dive in Bunaken when I added it mainly for the focus gear) since I started using this combo.
Incidentally, I tried out the newer, shorter (4", I think?) buoyancy arms from Stix on this trip with the largest float fitted onto each of them, along with their flotation belt. I have their 8" arms which work perfectly - however, the size of the arms means that it is hard to cram the housing and lights when trying to shoot in tight spaces. I figured the smaller arms would work well but had mixed results. Well, they did allow me greater ease in positioning the strobe arms, but because of the short size of the arm + the large diameter of the Big Float, adjusting the clamps was a bit of a pain. Adding an inch or so to the arm lengths would make them perfect, in my opinion.
The flotation belt provided the remaining buoyancy, but even with the belt maxxed out, my gear was a little more negatively buoyant than normal (ie, with the 8" arms and floats). Perhaps adding another arm on top of the housing (where the focus light goes) could be a solution.. while I was able to shoot quite comfortably with the housing in this configuration, I'd prefer to remove another 50gm of negative buoyancy if I can.
The new floats are sexy black, however, so that goes a long way
Both dive operators were excellent, with amenities that were commensurate with their rates and I have nothing but praise for either of them. The guides really know their stuff, spotting things that I would never have seen - must be a local thing, because even in the Andamans, our dive guides, who are all born in the area, tend to find a lot more than me, and I am not exactly a slouch at this.
Overall, we had a great time. As we were leaving, we kept trying to find a way to extend our stay by a few more days... unfortunately, some work commitments meant that we were unable to do so, but this is definitely a destination we will go back to some day.
Vandit
Let me know about the Andamans - we'd love to have you here with us. Did you get that washer issue with your housing fixed?