The First Critter Post
Posted on Jun 01, 2008 by bruce_mooreMarch 2nd, 2008
In Lembeh there is always something new to see. With more resorts there are more eyes underwater and with known dive sites getting heavy traffic in busy times, dive guides (at least the considerate and professional ones - some guides just dump their group on the bubbles of others, which is a topic I'll return to at a later date) steer their charges between sites, often making interesting discoveries. As for ourselves, Hengki and I have found such gems as mimic octopus, various frogfish, solar-powered nudibranchs and flamboyant cuttlefish in places we normally don’t look.
Traditionally, the established resorts do night dives nearby, meaning Jahir, Nudi Falls, Police Pier or Air Prang - all in the central part of the strait. As I tell anyone who'll listen, Lembeh is the best place anywhere for night dives, but with the prime location on Kambahu Bay of Black Sand Dive Retreat, we've been thrilled with each and every night dive in our bay, only occasionally venturing further afield to do night dives in Nudi Retreat (three coral cat sharks seen on our last nocturnal jump there), Air Prang (good for bobbit worms) and Angel's Window (two massive Spanish dancers seen last time there; both with commensal imperial shrimp). As good as those dives were, I feel that the best is close by, with most of our guests content to stay in the bay, where we rarely see any other boats past sundown. Anywhere we try results in fantastic dives in shallow, current-free conditions. Only at Hairball and Hairball Too! do we run a risk of experiencing any current as those sites are on the edge of the bay.
Highlights of our recent Kambahu night dives are many: three bobbit worms on a single dive (two side by side); seen a number of times at Larry’s Crack. Tiger shrimps at two sites. A stargazer at Hairball that was filmed lunging and gulping at fish attracted by the video lights - not just once, but over twenty times in one long continuous shot. A congregation of "coconut" octopus (O. marginatus) where a dozen or so were seen on a dive, battling over mates and just being out and about. Two frogfish that accosted a guest immediately upon entry and followed him for much of the dive, intent on using him as a landing pad.
Now that we've done so many night dives effectively covering the bay at various depths, we've picked out what we believe to be the hottest (for now at least) sites. One I will not name in order to keep it somewhat secret, but the other one has been a pleasant surprise: our House Reef.
I did a few night dives around New Year's and was most impressed to finish off 2007 and usher in 2008 so auspiciously. There was a pair of red ornate ghost pipefish for a while, but the big female moved off deeper after finishing her brooding duties and the smaller male lingered, as is custom, but as a guest was filming him one night a resident moray moved into the frame and ate him, so that was that. There were two small male black ogpf in the shallows, but they have since vanished as well for now. I found a pacific monkeyfish (also called pitted stonefish) on New Year's eve, which was quite a find as I'd only ever seen a single specimen a few years earlier (at TK2). This one was more of an orange tone. I found it again the next night and a few nights later found a much larger and much more orange one nearby - obviously the female mate. Early in January I found a miniscule juvenile flamboyant cuttlefish (smaller than the nail on one's pinky finger), though on the same dive the person I was diving with found an even smaller juvenile slipper lobster that was barely larger than a grain of sand. There are two Spanish dancers near to each other that I'm finding with regularity along with two lovely bubble shells just up the slope in the same area. TK1 is a fabulous area for Inimicus devilfish - probably the best in the strait. There's a massive orange / yellow / red one we've been seeing along with a plain brown one with a jet black head that's quite attractive in a ghoulish sort of manner along with the numerous red ones that are predominately seen by night. There has been plenty of small squid in the shallows, which make excellent photo subjects if they hang around long enough. Bobtail squid have also been spotted in the shallows along with a few resident cuttlefish that have developed a taste for banggai cardinalfish, the introduced species that is now seen all throughout the bay. The variety of shells is good, along with slugs such as sea hares and moon-faced euselenops (E. luniceps). We see an astounding array of eels - snake and moray. Flying gunards are common, taking on a red tinge while sleeping at night with their "wings" open. Self-guided guests have reported a resident coral cat shark that I have yet to see for myself. And just off the beach there's a common sea horse.
Sightings on our House Reef in early February included a lovely fluffy white hairy frogfish, ~7 painted frogfish in a range of colors (I like the black and red one best myself), a big green giant frogfish, a pair of clown frogfish, cockatoo flounder, 3 Jorunna funebris nudis, a number of Ceratosoma tenue nudis including one with a pair of P. imperator shrimp aboard, three veined octopus, the pair of pacific monkeyfish that have been around since New Year's, a common seahorses along with a pair of bubble shrimp that are "regulars", the usual heaps of banggai cardinalfish and much more.. . Not bad at all for a house reef.
Because of surgy conditions since late in December, there has not been much diving going on at the island-side sites north of Pantai Parigi. Once conditions settle there should be plenty to find at these "rested" sites. That should help relieve pressure from the sites which are seeing many divers as of late.
TK3 was probably the best site in recent months, but these days it is rather quiet. On my last jump there I found the resident black hairy frogfish freshly dead, choked on a large toby that he inhaled and stuck in his gullet, its tail still protruding from his mouth when I found him. Hairball is another popular site that is lately short of noteworthy critters. In the latter months of '07 we were finding a lot of cool stuff: a pair of "hairies", three ambon scorpionfish, including one lovely yellow specimen, a stunning bright orange devilfish, an exquisite purple cockatoo waspfish, a nice rust-colored moluccan sea horse, a flamboyant cuttlefish and more. On one dive we saw two wonderpus out on patrol and later Hengki found the hairy frogfish the guests wanted to see (the other wish list item was a wonderpus and that day they were lucky to se not just one, but three out and about). While I was hunting for the day-glow Inimicus, they were gazing at the frogfish "fishing" and of course the guest with the video had no more tape left in the camera - a common occurrence late in any Lembeh dive). While I was away a small Octopus mototi emerged from a bottle within reach and sauntered right past the frogfish, who, of course, inhaled it. But moments later the froggie choked and then spat it back out and it returned to its bottle unscathed. We never saw either again. I have a feeling that the frogfish died soon thereafter from the bite of the poisonous octopus and the bottle from which the wee octo emerged from disappeared, probably dragged to the beach by a fishermen's net.
By January there were slim pickings at Hairball, other than on night dives. On my last dive there, in mid-January Rocky and I found three widely-dispersed hairy frogfish after a lot of kicking around, but nothing else of interest (though one of the guests found a large stonefish at the very end of the dive). They were nice "hairies" though: pure white, jet black and striking orange. But now we're giving Hairball a rest. I'm sure that within a few weeks it will offer happy hunting again.
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