Lembeh Strait Diving with NAD-Lembeh

[scubarews 2]

As part of a 5 week expedition to Indoensia, I spent 5 days in Lembeh at NAD-Lembeh and had a blast in Macro Heaven. You can read my entire trip report with photos about Lembeh and the NAD-Lembeh Resort on my website at

 

Lembeh_2009 - SCUBAREWS_TRIP_REPORT

 

Here is a brief summary of that report:

 

After the pre-dive jitters that accompany the first dive of the big trip after a few months out of the water, I splashed down into murky warm 81 degree water and was handed my camera which was outfitted for macro. While nervously looking for any leaks in the rig, my attention was drawn to a tubular shaped jellyfish with a narrow tip at one end that I thought might be a new species. On second glance I concluded it must be an empty squid egg sack. As my eyes focused on this newly discovered drifting creature it became apparent it wasn’t a jellyfish or any other rare sea creature, but an old condom in the current of discarded waste. WELCOME to the most famous muck diving in the world, Lembeh Strait!

 

Don’t let the rubbish, sometimes low visibility and remoteness of this diving destination scare you away. If you are an underwater photographer or just a diver that likes seeing the strangest and rarest creatures in the underwater world, then Lembeh is a must dive location. You will see more new types of marine life on your first dive than many will see in years of diving. It is referred to as muck diving because of the often poor visibility and garbage in the water that primarily comes from the major port city of Bitung. But the many species of frog fish, seahorses, scorpionfish, leaf fish, crustaceans, cephalopods, nudibrachs and pipefish have adapted in very unique ways to this environment and use it as an advantage. The most important key to a successful Lembeh diving trip is to have an experienced dive guide with a very keen eye because camouflage is the method of choice for most of the marine life.

 

All of the resorts on the Lembeh Strait are within 10-20 minute boat rides of the good dive sites, so when I chose my home base for diving my main criteria was reasonable price, photo facilities, and good dive guides. The budget friendly eco-resort NAD-Lembeh satisfied my top criteria and exceeded expectations in many other areas including the food. Seasoned underwater photography and video veterans Mike Veitch and Simon Buxton recently took over co-management of the resort. If you frequent wetpixel.com forums you probably know these two characters or have at least read their informative and sometimes entertaining posts. Their combined experience and personalities make them great hosts for any diver, but especially serious photographers.

 

In 4 short days of diving I logged 12 dives and over 13 hours in this immaculate muck. While here I left my camera set up for macro the entire time with my 105mm lens on my Nikon D300 in a Sea&Sea housing with dual YS120 strobes and fisheye focus light. A 60mm lens would have been great on some of the dives because the octopus and some of the fish are a little too large for the 105mm. But I was able to get nearly everything on my macro muck list including several types of pygmy seahorses, Pegasus sea moths, Ambon scorpionfish, flamboyant cuttlefish, Banggai cardinalfish, mandarinfish, snake eels, dragonets, lionfish, octopus, giant frogfish, pipefish, mantis shrimp, waspfish, lionfish, and a plethora of colorful nudibranchs. This was my second trip to Lembeh and the muck diving was even better than I remembered and my stay at NAD-Lembeh a pleasant surprise.

[ornate_wrasse 0]

Ron,

 

Thanks for a very interesting and detailed summary of your trip to the Lembeh Straits. You certainly used the opening of your trip report to great advantage to draw the reader in When you finally described what the new species was, I had to laugh

 

Like you, I used Singapore Airlines to fly from SFO to Singapore via Seoul, Korea and stayed at the transit hotel in Singapore. I also worked in a couple of extra days at the end of my trip to see what Singapore had to offer.

 

I had wondered what the new resort was like and what Mike and Simon were doing to get the place in order for all the uw photographers that would visit the resort. Now it's definitely high on my list of resorts to stay at the next time I visit the Lembeh Straits.

 

Ellen

[xariatay 1]

Wonderful trip report! Strange new jellyfish ya!

Well, just wanna add. NAD Lembeh was a nice place when we visited in Nov 2007, when it was run by Jo & Sandra, imho, it wasn't neglected at all... We had a wonderful time there! Others who had recommended us to NAD Lembeh didn't find it neglected, else they wouldn't have recommended it... Anyway I am sure that I will be impressed with NAD Lembeh again when I get back (when there is air ticket promo for Manado), Lembeh is such a cool place!

[Kevster 6]

Excellent report.

 

Fully agree that NAD is excellent value for what you get. Excellent diving at a very confortable resort with great food.

I now gauge all my other dive trips to NAD i.e comparing cost and enjoyment to what i could have got at NAD.

I was there twice when Joe & Sandra were there. They were excellent hosts. <Made me feel really welcome and done a great job in my opinion..I certainly did not notice any neglect and attention to

detail.

 

Anyway i am planning a return visit in Aug.

I hope the new management do not try to move towards the KBRs,black sands,lembeh resort type operation/prices. Nad as a mid- range price option is spot on as is!!!

 

(but please lets keep this great place a secret!!)

Edited April 1, 2009 by Kevster

[scubarews 2]

Thanks for the feeback Ellen. Mike just sent me a picture of the new computer room and it looks really nice. So I think they are getting their budget to go ahead with the improvements that will make it even nicer. The great thing is that they know what is picky photographers want.

 

Ron

[scubarews 2]

Just to clarify about what I meant by my statement of apparent neglect in the trip report. This was my first trip there and I never saw it before, but there are some area that were showing their age when I was there. I didn't mean to imply anything about Jo and Sandra and have never met them, but sure they ran a good place. It was just my observation that a few things needed upgrading and that the current management is seeing that it gets done which will be good for everyone. BASed on the response already about Jo and Sandra, it sounds like they were great managers and I shouldfind out where they are now and givee their new resot a try.

 

Glad you all found it imformative and a little funny about the "Trojan Jelly"

 

Ron

[Scuba_SI 39]

Hi Ron,

 

Thanks for putting so much effort in your report, it reads very well

 

Jo and Sandra were evidently popular with the guests which is great, hopefully Mike and I can take it up a notch. For those guests who stayed in mid 2008 when the resort was getting a bit 'tired' - we have replaced the leaking roofs and overhauled all the engines, boats and generators. Next on the list, rooms and mattresses

 

Here is a photo of the new dry camera room, the wet camera room will be finished soon:

 

 

It is a nice place to tweak a camera with good light, but it's main purpose is to be a place where everyone can download photos and check through our library to find out what they saw.

[xariatay 1]

Really glad to see NAD improving! We have made good friends with other divers during our stay there, so it has a special place in our hearts! I agree with Kev abt the prices thing.

[Scuba_SI 39]

As a note to this report, we just replaced all the mattresses today! There's lots of other things going on but i wont clog up the forum with commercial propaganda!