17 August is Indonesian independence day; and we celebrated with lots of games that were really fun. The games were Eating Krupuk (Indonesian cracker) with hands tied behind the back (Indonesian traditional games), Pillow War, Hula hoop, and Tug of War. All of the Lembeh Resort and critters@lembeh staff were participating at the event include Mr. Glenn Knape (Lembeh Resort General Manager). Everybody was excited and had a great time! Mr. Glenn also presented all the prizes to the winners of the games.

See all the scene images from the event below.

"Blue Ring... Blue ring .... Blue Ring.....!!!"
"I've been wishing for a blue ring for a long time now, and I finally got it, I'm so happy! Not just to see the octopus but also because it has eggs! It was a fantastic moment!" said Andre Von Arb. It was a lucky dive for Andre and his wife Gaby; this is their third visit to Lembeh Resort, diving with critters@lembeh, and they still love diving here. We thank Andre for sharing his photos of the Blue Ring octopus carrying its eggs.

Picture below:Kerri Bingham, dive center manager, critters@lembeh, also got some close up shots of the Blue Ring Octopus using a "Snoot".

We are happy to present a photo gallery of ONE day of diving in Lembeh Strait with critters@lembeh by Andre Von Arb. This is his third trip with us, and in just one day he was able to photograph almost everything on his wish list: Hairy Frogfish, Flamboyant Cuttlefish, Thorny Sea Horse, Harleyquin Crab With Eggs, Mantis shrimp, Long-snout Shrimp and many more...
His memory card was almost full with 147 photos from the day, It's just AMAZING diving in LEMBEH! Thanks Andre, glad you got to photograph the Blue Ring WITH EGGS the next day--wish list complete!

We had a great (albeit rainy) time at the Tomohon Flower Festival for our Annual Family Picnic. The parade featured flower covered floats, the theme being various cities in Indonesia and a few foreign countries. After the parade the floats were on display for pictures. We followed this up with a trip to the stables for a little horseback riding experience. For many of the staff it was the first time riding a horse. Moms, dads, and kids alike took a few laps around the field and posed for the camera. Enjoy the pictures!

Claudia Peyer, winner of the “Best of Sulawesi” 12 night dive package, which included 6 nights at Lembeh Resort, and 6 nights at Minahasa Lagoon, just cashed in on her prize! She was accompanied by her husband Gerry, and it was their second visit to Lembeh Resort. The winning picture was taken on her last combo trip in 2009 with Minahasa Lagoon, view it here: www.minahasalagoon.com/blog/

Claudia jokes about the photo, saying, “We were just hanging around at the pool after our last dive. I had brought my camera with me, still in the housing. While looking at our ‘after-dive drinks’ I placed half of the camera in the water and focused on the 2 glasses of champagne and beer. In the distance you can see Manado Tua. After seeing the result, we sent it to Schoener-Tauchen for the advertising category of the competition. And I won this wonderful prize! We really wanted to come back to Lembeh so we were so happy to return within a year!” What a interesting story and a beautiful result, congratulations Claudia! We hope to see you and Gerry again soon. To see more info and images from Claudia visit her website: www.fotomeer.ch/

During my stay at Lemeh Resort, I usually start my days with a couple of dives on the house reef. When it comes to maintaining artificial structures, there are always lots of things to do. Most mornings I go out after the dive boats have left, and on the way I keep an eye out for healthy transplanting candidates.

These are good sized corals or sponges that are growing by themselves or are otherwise naturally unattached. If possible I try to move them to a structure in a similar depth in which it was found, in order to minimize any transplanting stress on the organism. However, as an observed general rule sponges are able to tolerate deeper depths than corals and as such any coral transplants are usually placed on the shallower biorock structures. In addition to transplanting comes more of a maintenance aspect. All around the reef grows a spunky little purple encrusting sponge, which normally is kept in check by the natural balance of the reef. On the bio rock though, it has a tendency to over grow and smother newly transplanted corals, so every week or so it needs to be scrubbed it off with a soft brush. This time of year the seasonal currents also bring in a lot of trash from the surrounding area, and every so often I go out and pick up trash around the house reef at the end of a dive.

Another task on the house reef is animal surveying. Identifying animals around the house reef helps us to know how successful the artificial structures are at attracting marine communities. By having several different types of structures placed in different locations around the reef, we can study the variances in populations associated with each structure. One of my goals during my stay here is to document any differences in populations around each structure during the day and night. So far I’ve spent several mornings acquainting myself with the reef and its inhabitants, now I can start familiarizing myself at night.

Currently I have several on-going projects here on the house reef. Transplanting and maintaining, trash pickup, animal surveying and observation, and lastly, mapping. The resort guides all have an excellent understanding of the house reef well and can draw up a very good diagram, but the resort didn’t yet have an actual detailed map drawn to scale. Also, with the addition of some new structures and the relocation of some others, the trail markers were not completely up to date. Over the past couple of days, with help from Dimpy Jacobs, the resort’s resident marine biologist, we put together a scaled map of all the artificial structures using a compass and a reel marked out in ten foot increments. Although mapping the initial artificial structures has been completed, I’d like to expand the map to the surrounding predominant natural structures as well. I have also moved around some of the trail markers in hopes to make the trails more easily visible at intersections.

That’s all for now, more info on the night diving coming up, and it already promises to be an interesting project!

Check out Madison's Blog: www.5degreesnorth.blogspot.com

The wider side of Lembeh!
We have been doing 3-tank dive trips from Lembeh to Bangka. Departing at 8 AM, it's only an hour by our comfortable fast boats to get there. Bangka is great for a day of wide angle photography and diving. Divers can see schooling Barracuda, Bump head parrotfish, turtles and eagle rays. The reefs are very colorful with soft corals and tropical fish. On the ride to or from Bangka, dolphins are often spotted riding the bow of the boat. In Bangka, it is also possible to see ghost pipefish, Giant frogfish, lots of nudibranchs, Bargibanti Pigmy Seahorses, Pontohi Pigmy seahorses and Ambon Scorpionfish.
A day trip to Bangka is a great addition to incredible macro in Lembeh. Let us arrange one for you!

Have you ever seen how the underwater critters make friends with our dive guides? "It was an interesting moment witness,” said Mark Wolff, who took the pictures of the funny moment. Abner spotted the Giant frogfish and pointed it out to the guests. What happened next was a surprise not only to Abner, but to the guests as well. While the guests were taking pictures of the froggie, it slowly started moving towards Abner to take a closer look at him. The giant frogfish jumped onto Abner’s arm and stayed for a brief moment, then he moved on to his octopus, and eventually around to his fins, then back to the bottom. Andi also had a cool moment with a Boardclub cuttlefish, spending a few minutes checking out the cuttlefish, while the cuttlefish posed for some photos!
I guess sometimes the critters are just as interested in us, as we are in them! Our dive guides have spent thousands of hours underwater with these incredible animals, and gotten to know them so well that we like to think of them as our friends!
Thanks to Mark & Debra Wolff from Green Mountain Scuba for the pictures and great time diving with critters@lembeh team.

A big thanks to the Green Mountain Scuba group for joining us here in Lembeh. Of special note is Vikki Sholten-Reeves' story. She walked into the Green Mountain shop less than 24 hours before the flight to Indonesia departed. Her and her husband had always wanted to go to Indonesia & Lembeh Resort in particular. The shop had been looking to fill the last spot due to a cancellation and jokingly asked her if she wanted to join. In a feat of travel efficiency, Vikki managed to get a ticket (on miles no less!), organize all her gear, get time off work, and make it on the plane 22 hours later. Now that's "get up and go"! The group had amazing diving, just check out their website, <www.greenmtnscuba.com> and also the article above on Critter Friendship, shot by Mark Wolff. Thanks everyone, it was a pleasure having you all.

Critters@Lembeh loves when guests are so excited about the diving there that they return. Two couples who recently visited Lembeh Resort are true fans of the Strait: Heiko & Jutta just completed their 5th trip with us (and their 10th visit to North Sulawesi); and Henri & Annie just returned for their 6th trip with us!

There is always something new and exciting waiting for guests no matter how often they come. This trip, the two couples were excited about first-time sightings of violet banded, coleman and tiger shrimp; pontohi pygmy seahorses; and a weedy rhinopias.

What these Lembeh enthusiasts especially enjoy is the experience level of our senior guides. “We have a lot of fun underwater and have a really good relationship with the guides. They know what we want to see and don’t waste time showing critters we can find ourselves so we can cover a lot of space on one dive,” said Jutta.

Heiko and Jutta had an extremely difficult journey to reach Lembeh. Normal travelers would have given up – but not these dedicated divers! The volcanic eruption in Iceland had them stuck in Frankfurt for two days before returning home to reschedule their holiday. When they finally boarded their rescheduled flight, the plane got a flat tire causing a 1.5 hour delay. Then, heavy rains during the flight from Singapore to Manado caused the flight being detoured to Davao, PH! Needless to say, when they finally arrived they were delighted. Unfortunately their delay caused some booking challenges, but the Resort did their best to accommodate the new schedule. While they had to move rooms several times, they left very happy and will return to see us again….perhaps as soon as this October!

Because of their tough travel experience, Critters@Lembeh offered Heiko & Jutta a special full day trip on a private boat to Palau Dua, where 50 meter visibility provided sightings of species including eagle ray, napolean wrasse, schools of blue trigger fish and many other schooling fish – a refreshing alternative from what is typically seen in Lembeh Strait. For Henri & Annie, spending time alone with a zebra bat fish at Aer Bajo was their most special dive. We can’t wait to have them back!

Matt Weiss: I just returned from a productive trip from Northern Sulawesi. It was a trip of firsts for me, the first time I saw a hairy frogfish, the first time I ate bat and the first time I got to see the new wide angle destination -- Buyat Bay.

See more of his story in the link below:
www.divephotoguide.com/underwater-photography-scuba-ocean-news/divephotoguide-editorial-trip-lembeh/

Lucky me, I got a second chance. In September, 2009 I arrived in Buyat with a lot of enthusiasm and excitement but without a wide-angle lens more than 35 mm.  There were plenty of macro subjects for me, but a wide-angle lens captures the beauty and power of this area best.  I was occupied with abundant opportunity to photograph, but I was longing for a real wide-angle lens.  But now I’m back in Buyat and well equiped.  Lucky me!
 
Swimming along the pristine coral reefs, I feel like the first diver ever to witness their color and splendor. The sizable fields of fragile coral heads like Cabbage, Staghorn and Lettuce will take your breath away!  There are sections of Staghorn (Acropora) coral that are 60 feet wide by 150 feet, in perfect condition.  Unspoiled Table coral can be as wide as 10 feet.  Continuing along the lush hard coral slope you can find substantial pink, red or orange gorgonian fans covered with crinoids.  The sandy bottom is habitat for the huge red soft coral trees and sinewy red sea whips.  Swarming yellow cardinal fish encircle sponges and coral heads.  The colors and life forms are truly magical!
 
Buyat is a 3-hour boat ride from Lembeh Island.  Most dive sites are a very short boat ride from the accommodations at the Lakban Bungalow Complex at Buyat Bay and the variety of dive sites is impressive. It is easy to see that too many dives and divers have not spoiled this pristine and productive area. If you are in the mood for some refreshing diving in an exquisite area, then Buyat is the place to go.
Contact Danny Charlton:danny@crittersatbuyat.com
 

Check out what Jon & Angie Pendleton (our volunteer) seen on their fantastic dives at Lembeh & Buyat:

Hairy froggie waving lure @Lembeh
I had the camera below him to prop it on something as the viz wasn't great. He started waving the lure to try and see me off & I managed to catch him in the act.

Puffer @ Night dive Lembeh
This is one of the very few pictures i've managed to get illuminated at night solely with my own torch. I like the way the light falls, it makes it look like CCTV or something, like he's been caught in the act. And he looks a little bit like Boy George with the face makeup on...

Waspfish kissing @ Lembeh
I thought they looked really sweet nestling together against the onslaught of SLR-wielding divers. I kind of like how their mouths are covered too, it makes it a bit chaste, like Bollywood

Schooling Cardinalfishes @ Buyat
This is just a great contrast between the orange and the cobalt blue of the water. Taken around 12m in beautiful clear Buyat water

Cleaner shrimp @ Buyat
Another one from Buyat. I only took this one picture and it came out nice and crisp.

In late October, our dive guides began finding lots of Blue Ring Octopus on many dive sites in Lembeh Strait. You may have seen our earlier postings about the Blue Ring Mania we were all experiencing!

For the months of November and December, we were even lucky enough to see many of the blue rings mating! We’ve all been anxious to find a blue ring with eggs, and that finally happened on Saturday, when our dive guide Opo found the coveted critter at a near-by dive site. We are all very excited, including Opo who said it was his first time ever seeing this!

During mating, a male will grab the female’s mantle, which distracts the female's vision, while he transfers sperm packets by inserting his hectocotylus into her mantle cavity. This can take only seconds, but sometimes lasts longer and can even result in the female removing the male from her if she’s gotten too tired.

Because Opo found this awesome animal, Paulus headed back the next day with guests to the same site, whereupon he found the mother and eggs within about two minutes of beginning the dive! We are lucky to have some close-up shots of the baby octopuses inside the eggs that were looking ready to hatch. The female lays approximately 50 eggs and she carries her eggs around under her arms. She will have the eggs for about 3 - 6 months and then the female will die. During the time that she keeps the eggs, she doesn’t eat at all. Once the eggs have hatched, the young octopus develop rapidly, growing to about the size of a golf ball. The octopus will have a life span of approximately two years. Blue Rings carry enough poison to kill their prey within minutes. Blue Rings are not aggressive animals, and when disturbed they can flatten out their bodies to hide and change their body color to blend into its surroundings.

Thanks to our awesome dive guides! The photos are courtesy of Hergen Spalink and Kerri Bingham, our dive center managers.

Gayus has made another great find!!! Two Pontohi Pygmy Sea Horses, one was the yellow one with white belly and the other one was the brown one. Gayus also found an orange Bargibanti Pygmy Sea Horse on a red Muricella sp. sea fan. Continuing his second dive with our guest Reider Opem, Gayus found a blue ring octopus, which was Reidar’s second time seeing this octopus in just a couple of days! Way to go Gayus!!!

Have you ever seen a red Robust Ghost Pipefish before? Commonly you can see Brown, Yellowish and even Green ones. But red, not very often! And the one in this photo is also carrying eggs! But not just that, have you ever seen this Nudibranch before? Well it’s is a Noumea sp. Nudibranch, and it’s not often found. The body is about 20 mm long and has bright yellow coloring, almost like the yellow sea cucumber that we often seen in Lembeh Strait at famous dive sites like California Dreaming and Angel’s Window. This nudibranch also has red rhinophores and red coloring on the tip of its gills. “It was my first time seeing this nudi!” said Paulus. Completing his awesome finds on his dive of the day with Reidar Opem, Paulus also spotted a Blue ring octopus. “Is this awesome or what!”

7 Frogfish on a Dive!!!! Can you believe this?
Our critters@lembeh team are SUPER Spotters!!!

Kerri found a Hairy frogfish, Andy found 2 Orange Painted Frogfish at the rubble and sandy slope area. Jerry also found 3 Orange Painted Frogfish and a very colorful Painted Frogfish that is so camouflaged on the rubble area, you can hardly see it!

Have you ever seen this critter? Well maybe you do, but don’t realize it is a Jelly Fish. Yup it’s a Jelly Fish which comes from the family Ctenophores, commonly called Comb Jellies, Sea Gooseberries or Crawling Comb Jelly, because it appears like a jelly fish and it also has nematocysts. Comb Jelly’s are pelagic animals, which have two large spherical tentacles, and cilia that appear vertically like a comb, hence the name "Comb Jelly". The 'jelly' is a reference to Jelly Fish. The cilia of Comb Jellies are sticky and are used for catching and stinging their prey. Comb Jellies can be found at sandy areas or sometimes they can be found sitting on sea cucumbers; this jelly fish looks very weird and funny. We thank Colleen Boreham for sharing these pictures with us.

On the Mandarin dive last night, our dive guides gave our guests a bonus! Not only did they watch the mandarin fish mating, but our guides Abner and Oxin found a Blue ring octopus, Hairy octopus, Wonderpus octopus, Lembeh Sea Dragon, Tiger Shrimp and Bobtail Squid, all on our house reef!!!!

Come dive with citters@lembeh, a Critter Divers Paradise!

www.crittersatlembeh.com or info@lembehresort.com

Finding a Blue Ring Octopus is very cool, but seeing Blue Ring mating is unforgettable and a dream to many photographers and divers. And lucky for us, we have a couple of photographers who shared their images of this special moment with us. And fortunately we had some collections of The Blue Ring Octopus Mating from two of our guest; Von Rolf Orteig & Patrick Vuilleme.

Enjoy this awesome sequence from them!
(On top film strip presented by: Von Rolf Orteig & at bottom film strip presented by: Patrick Vuilleme).

Abner went to Makawide 3; he was searching for Hairy Octopus at the rubble area but fortunately he saw a different octopus that was well camouflage. The octopus felt harmed when Abner went closer; it swam away and change it color. That time Abner realized it was a Mototi Octopus (Octopus Mototi) it has white base color mixed with yellowish small spots along the body that started to appear and followed with the brown stripes. And a single blue ring at both side near it head, makes this octopus more exciting to see. Steven Kovacs caught some cool shots of the octopus; it was his first time sawing this octopus after couple of trip to Lembeh and he was excited. Good job Abner!

Taeko Torima is our friend from Japan. She had visited us 5 times now, and she always had a great time especially when she dove with Andy (our Japanese specialist dive master & guest relation). This time Taeko shared some of her great shots, and we thank her for it. Enjoy her masterpiece!

On Saturday, December 12th 2009, the Lembeh Strait community lost one of it’s finest young dive guides, 28 year old Yopie Mamamoba. Born in Tondano, Yopie moved to Lembeh Strait in 2001 where he began working as a a Dive Guide, met his wife Forni, and had his first child, Vladimir. In September of 2008, he joined the critters@lembeh team here at Lembeh Resort. Since then, he had become an integral part of the Lembeh Resort Family, impressing guests with his spotting abilities and sense of humor, working well with his fellow Dive Guides, and reaching the milestone of logging over 4,000 dives.

Most recently, Yopie had spent some time in Buyat Bay, participating in the exploration and establishment of a new dive destination. In September of this year, Yopie fell ill. Despite medical care, Yopie was unable to overcome his illness and passed away at home with his family and friends. Just after Yopie fell ill, he also found out his wife was expecting their second child. During the last year, many of you had the opportunity to dive with Yopie and we would like to give you the opportunity to contribute to a fund we have established for his children’s education and welfare. Please see the details below and enjoy the photos of Yopie and his family.


**Donation may be sent to: paypal account angelique@murexdive.com

Opo and Oxin again found two Blue Ring Octopus and apparently it was a pair that were ready to mate.
It was awesome moment and very cool; first Opo only found one small Blue Ring Octopus at the deep area about 20m, after spotting it, he went slowly up to 18 m and found a Painted Frogfish. Near the frogfish he found another Blue Ring but it was bigger size then the other one and here the excitement begins; the one tiny Blue ring from the deep was swimming to the shallow and swam close to the second octopus. At that time, Kerri were joining the dive and she realized the two octopus were a pair and ready to mate. Just then, the smaller blue ring (male) jumped onto the back of the larger one (female) and after couple minutes of being attached, the male released himself. The small male started to try again but this time it’s at front of the females head and all that resulted was a long struggle. “Very awesome moment!!!!” said Kerri.

Not to be outdone, Opo and Paulus found 4 Hairy Frogfish very close together at Hairball. Really, really, really Fantastic! 2009 is going out with a bang! as we’ve had super critters all over the place.
“Good job critters@lembeh team, keep up on the good work!”

Once a year we celebrate Clean Up Day with PADI AWARE, usually in September. This year we formed two groups—one to clean up underwater and one to clean up on land.

Our underwater group tackled the clean up at our House Reef. We didn’t find a lot off trash there because we are in the habit of cleaning up continuously.

Our land team cleaned up Waturiri beach at one of the villages near Lembeh Resort. At Waturiri beach, we were in for a real surprise. In August, the wind begins to blow from the south, with heavy impacts for Waturiri. All of the beach area was covered by trash. This saddened our land team, but they did their part, collecting 475 kg of trash. Un-organic trash that we collected was divided into plastic and hard material. We spent the whole day clearing half of the beach.

We hope we will be able to organize clean up activities more frequently and raise awareness about the problems of trash collecting on the beach. We want to thank our friend Stella Chung Freund from WWF for joining us to document Clean Up Day 2009. Thanks for all the pictures!

It was a fantastic trip for Fred Dion and his group! They really enjoyed their stay with us at Lembeh Resort and, of course, the excellent diving with Lembeh Divers. At the end of their stay, the resort put on a special barbeque party. The kids from Pintu Kota Kecil sang and entertained us as everyone enjoyed a romantic, relaxing dinner around the swimming pool.

In appreciation of their fantastic stay here at Lembeh, Fred’s group has collected some of their images to share. We will proudly present them on our News & Event section at (www.lembehresort.com/news) and Website Gallery. Thanks for the images and for the memories!