My Manado trip

Wah, so fast my Manado trip is over.... When is my next dive trip? Tioman is good also. Wanna get wet~~!

Go here to see all my photos http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/divocean/Manado_Mar07_Mich/
(I don't know what happened to my head.. I kept thinking it's still March.. thus the album "Mar07"...my memory stops in March and I thought my trip was in March... too troublesome to change, just leave it as it is)

My luggage~ Half the stickers were gone after the trip because of the handlings at the airport. My luggage was 22+kg. When I carried it up and down one floor (the lift doesn't stop at my floor)... wah... felt like dying... See I brought my zhuzhu with me. Zhuzhu was good, no fibre sticking out of it. But it'll be best if it's slightly bigger.


Breakfast at McDonalds in Changi Airport. My favourite McD~ Guess what I ate on the day I came back? McNuggets set meal PLUS a double cheeseburger. wahahaha.... so satisfying~

Guess what this is? Ice forming on the window of the plane.

This photo was on the way to Lumba-lumba Resort. It was Good Friday. There were red crosses everywhere. Manado is a very interesting place, a small place but lots of cars, and lots of good Japanese cars. AND, they have a church in almost every 500m~! Amazing, and those churches are very pretty. Can tell they spent a lot of their money in building churches.

During the trip, including the one hour journey to the resort, the 2 hours drive to Lembeh Strait and the boat trip from dive sites back to Lembeh jetty (quite a few churches along the coastline), it must have been no less than 50 churches that we've seen.... amazing.....

Arrived at the resort, having welcome drink. It'll be better if the drink is freezing cold.
We go diving~ Look at the calm sea, almost mirror-like calm. Makes you feel so peaceful and calm looking at the sea. (Pictures taken when the boat was moving, not stationary) There's a crab hiding in the feather star, it kept running... This was the best shot I've got.

We never figure out what fish is this.. It was quiet big. This was at very shallow water, maybe 5m.

Little crabby hiding in coral.

"Birdie".. Very funny thing, always in pair, the one behind will follow exact movement of the one in front. But difficult photo subject... cos their comouflage is so good.

My shot of the trip~!! Lizardfish eating pipefish.
I saw the pipefish very quietly near the bottom, I hesitated whether to call Gab to take some photos of it. In the end, I decided not to and just take the picture by myself. Just when I was about to descend further near to it, "zoop!" the pipefish was eaten by the lizardfish! Amazing! I then frantically rang my bell to alert Gab.

Think it got startled a bit and the lizardfish turn the other way. By now Gab and I were on either side of it. The pipefish turned white colour.

I don't think the lizardfish can swallow the pipefish whole... so it's got no choice now... can't finish its meal and perhaps it thinks it's safer to hide in the sand.

But it managed to only submerged itself, the pipefish was exposed. You can see the lizardfish's eyes.. sooooo... funny... Poor pipefish, there's nothing it can do. Then Gab made a movement, the lizardfish got scared and spat out the pipefish!!! and ran away. The pipefish's tail was bend. It still can swim, I think it will survive... Poor lizardfish... Gabriel made it lost its meal. hahaha... But the lizardfish was too greedy to think that he can swallow the pipefish whole...

Cow fish. Look at its eye... from this angle, it has got a love shape~~

This was on top of the boat~ I love this boat. Very comfy and entry and exit out of water is very easy. This is Shirley T.
Me~ I love my new bikini. heeheehee... but when do I not love my NEW bikini?
Gabriel sun tanning.

I've never really see the sun actually sinks down to the horizon. In Tioman, it's always blocked by clouds. And now finally...
Too bad don't have a tele-lens to capture it nearer.

This nudibranch is so cute~~

Lionfish at the grass patch. We love the grass patch, a lot of things to see.

Gab tried to wait for the shrimp to go into the eel's mouth but it didn't. And notice the small baby eel beside. Soooooooo cuteeee.... There were a lot of creatures around these pipes alone. A lot!

Many of us took the photo of these creatures. Some kind of amphipod I think. They have bright orange colour, very cute.

One of my favourite photos of clownfish. It's got anemone and hard coral as the background instead of just anemone.


"Orang utan" crab.

Funny looking crab... sooo.. cute....

This is... 一坨大便...

Snake eel. I wasn't sure whether it's a snake or an eel, thus I dare not go too near it...
Gab took this close up.

I love to see sun ray shines through the cloud... In Manado, the sun sets earlier than Singapore, thus when we came back from 3rd dive, it's already got evening sun. See how the sun ray shines directly on the surface of the ocean. Like there'll be an alien (Mr Bean?) being beamed down anytime. hahahaha....

We went another destination, Lembeh Strait, to do 3 dives there. It's a journey of 2 hours' drive. The photo below was at the jetty. 2 days before, some makcik came to our dive boat to sell us bracelets and t-shirts. We didn't have any money on us. They asked us to pay the next day, they'll come look for us. So Gab brought the money plus a little bit extra in his dry bag the next day. And he left the money there till the day we went Lembeh. And thank Goodness he brought out extra money and didn't take it out. We had to go toilet after a 2 hours' journey. And a visit to the toilet cost 2000 Rupiah.................... that's about S$0.35. Nobody had any money even the dive masters...................... Then I remembered Gab has got money in his dry bag... whew... thank goodness. We all expected the toilet must be super dirty. We were told that we cannot wear our slippers into the toilet, must go in bare foot. Lucky the toilet is really really clean. whew.... relieved... and because Gab's got the money, after a day's dive we came here again to have a very quick shower of fresh water. Wah, felt so good... as we still got a 2 hours car ride to endure...
I had the best lunch of all days there in Lembeh... we were served fishes. Everyday there're only 2 dishes, one meat and one extremely simple cooked vege. If you like it you're good, if you don't, then it's your business. I don't like their lunch. I didn't even have my lunch on the last day. Lucky I've got my chocolate.

Sunset at Lembeh Strait was very very nice~~~ Makes good pictures~~
I tilted the camera a bit so that it's got light reflections in the photo.


Early morning, there was fog on the surface of the ocean. Made the mountain looked like it's floating. The mountain (was it Bunaken or Manado Tua??) always has clouds around its top. very pretty. I've never seen so many volcanoes and big mountains until now. Lots of big mountains in Lembeh Straits. And they are very very pretty. When I went Phuket it was mostly rocks and limestones.
This was taken in the morning too. I love this photo.

The whole family of clownfish were looking at me.

Wonder this is the father or mother. It must be very very old.... Look at its face..

This little fellow was alone in the anemone. Soooooo... tiny.. soooooo.. cute.....

This lobster was hidden inside some coral....All I can see was his 2 feelers when I stuck my head in it. So I just anyhow pushed my camera in it and anyhow point and shoot. Who knows, this turn out to be a nice pic~ hahaha.. so happy... But because we weren't allowed to wear gloves, and I was trying to stable myself... I pushed my hands against the coral... and walau... got stung... Damn itchy until now... But it's worth it.

Gab and I chased this little fellow here and there... playing hide and seek... this is the ONLY photo I managed to get.

Weird looking fish~ so funny~
The last night at the resort. Taking photos while waiting for others.


Me and Shirley. The light was made by coconut with coconut meat/flesh still in it. The cover was made from banana leave or something. Very natural.

Look~ I was able to capture the stars in the pic~

Our birthday cake. Gabriel, me, Alex and George celebrated our birthdays during a dive trip for the second time~~

I don't have the group photos in my camera. So, have to wait for other photos to come~

Holiday always end very fast. So depress. Every time I come back from a dive trip I look forward to another. I just so look forward to a diving holiday than a non-diving holiday..... but I want to go Australia (I can buy surf shorts, wetsuits, bikinis there ) , I want to go Africa, I want to go Japan (I can buy pretty colour diving equipments which can't be found here!)... but.... no money after one dive trip. hehe.... "just keep dreaming, just keep dreaming dreaming dreaming"~