My Indonesian Love Affair

[dirtfarmer]

The balance of stamps in my passport show a sign of my fondness for Indonesia. I keep going back there to experience the wonderful people, the beautiful landscapes, and the great diving. I believe Indonesia offers up some of the best diving on this planet called Earth that really should be called Ocean as there's more Ocean than land. I find the diving in Indonesia be great to epic and a good value providing great diving for the cost, and I don't mind the long travel time from California as I love the diving there so much.

This last trip was my 10th trip to Indonesia and certainly won't be my last. I started with 7 days of diving in Bali, specifically diving the Tulamben area as I'm a macro fanatic. Liberty Dive Resort is my usual choice in the area for a few reasons. It's affordable, they offer free nitrox, I can make my own dive schedule, and you get your own private guide. If I have a specific critter I'm looking for I just tell my guide Wayan and he will select the best site for it. Wayan is an awesome guide, an also a good photographer in his own right. I recently upgraded from my trusty old Canon s-95 with Inon diopter to an Canon Sl-1 with a 60mm lens I can use my diopter with and a 10-18mm wide angle lens to capture wonderful reef scapes. It's a camera with a bigger sensor and much more range to control depth of field thru f stop settings, and my old frustration of shutter lag is gone the way of the dodo. So with this camera upgrade i was experiencing quite a bit of learning curve and Wayan was patient and supportive. Every once in a while he would be checking out my shots on our dives and I'll admit I was a bit embarrassed with my capability at the start. I eventually found my groove and turned out getting some decent photos.

So the critter range in Tulamben was in my opinion much narrower than my previous trips there. The cephalopod showings were limited to a couple of common cuttlefish, which was a bit disappointing as I'm a big octopus and squid fan. Wayan found me a lot of his favorite tiny nudibranches, (he seems to favor pea sized and under) and he's always good at pointing out the angle to shoot them head on, but the larger nudis seemed to be on the scarce side. A product of the warmer water that El Nino have produced? I don't know but I was a bit surprised.
I did want to try out my new rig on some ladybug shrimp and during that dive he gave me the challenge of trying to get a decent picture of a tunicate shrimp, not an easy feat trying to shoot a photo of a tiny shrimp the size of a grain of rice inside a tunicate. I wonder what those little shrimp might be thinking? Who is this pointing this funny looking thing at me and it makes really bright flashes of light, jeez I hope he goes away.

I would say this was the most sparse I've seen the critters in Tulamben. In my past experience it was almost critter overload in Tulamben. On overload dives I can easily be rushed shooting photos because I don't want to miss a critter. But on this trip I found myself with the patience to slow down more, and concentrate once I got used to the new camera rig.

The last day I decided to try out the wide angle lens and having my guide Wayan model for me was a real treat. A model in a wide angle shot provides so much more drama in my opinion.Tulamben spoils me with my own private guide which is a real treat. My last dive we did the Kubu wreck and we had a great time trading off the camera shooting the obligatory photos of us at the stern and artificial wheel.

This trip I also decided to venture out further afield for some of my meals. I tried the Safety Stop a couple of times, the food is pretty good and you definitely won't go home hungry. And to my real frustration at my second to last breakfast at Liberty I tried the boiled eggs, at home I'm terribly spoiled with our own eggs which make any other egg pale by comparison, and yes I do eat them when traveling and are usually disappointed. So first I figured that they would overcook them and I'd be disappointed, but the waitress asked If I wanted them medium or well, so being a runny yolk fan I delightfully chose medium figuring the still would be overcooked. But Hot Damn! they came out medium and I was so happy, why oh why did I wait till so long to try them? Note to self don't be stupid.

On my way to the airport I wanted to stop on the way in Celuk to go shopping for some silver jewelry for my wife. My driver despite me telling him I don't want to go to some plush fancy overpriced shop took me to one anyway. I should have refused to go in and asked for another place. After wasting to much time he took me all the way to Celuk and a shop that "he takes his Asian customers to" ( yeah cause they don't to be ripped off in some fancy place), I ended up finding some nice pieces to show my appreciation for my wife letting me leave her at home while I go diving, but it was a mad dash to get to the airport in time.

Luckily for me Tulamben was not my only stop on this trip, next up was my fourth trip to Komodo, a dive destination that I love and and was anticipating greatly. I ended up having the most nerve racking flight ever, not because I was flying on Lion Air, but because the election, my wife was live texting me the election news from back home in the states and the news wasn't looking good.

I'll do my Komodo portion for another post but here are some of my favorite photos from Bali

 

[Bubblesong]

Love top photo, it looks like an underwater Pokemon.
Luckily my hubby likes diving, and we are 10 months from sending last kid to college!
You detailed report makes planning really helpful, thank you!

 

[jcclink]

On your next trip to Bali try Seraya area. I had much better luck with critters there last month than Tulamben.
Ambon seems to be the hot spot the past couple of years for macro.

 

[chillyinCanada]

Great shots! I'm really looking forward to your Komodo report.

 

[Cali_diver]

Nice job on the wide angle!!

 

[Luko]

I always like to hear about Tulamben one of my fav places for macro.

I think last year I had the same feeling like yours, less critters, nothing new, I was under the impression of turning around photowise. I always had been diving with the same guide who by the way is excellent.
So this year I chose to give a freelance guide his chance, of course not the first freelance guide across the corner but someone who's already known in the pro photogs circle Ajiex Dharma. And that was a total blast!!! On top of that as he is a photogrpaher too, he knows what to look for and helps for lighting.

I thought I was re-discovering Tulamben again, we went to sites I had never been before east to Batu Belah and west past Kubu. All macro sites I had never dived, except for the slope, I beieve these sites are either too specialized macrowise or some too far away for the regular dive centre to take their guests there.
Ajiex didn't even bother taking me to Tulamben bay classics as the dropoff or coral garden, all less interesting in his view.

Of course the guy is a nudibranch fanatic, he spots nudis that I can't even without my +10 lens and names them all in latin at surface time. I named what I wanted to see and he just selected the sites for. So what I can recommend is that for your next trips you arrange with a freelance guide who also take care about the organization. there are more and more in Tulamben this year, three of the best are Ajiex of course, also Darmada "Nemo Tulamben" and Ketut Wisnu (ex Liberty)

Example of stuff I had never seen before in Tulamben Ajiex showed me:

 

[chillyinCanada]

• Where did you stay Luko and how did you contact Ajiex?

 

[Bubblesong]

What kind of lighting? Are these deep dives or night dives?
These are fabulous photos and I hope to learn more! Thank you!

 

[Luko]

• Where did you stay Luko and how did you contact Ajiex?

It doesn't matter where you stay, Ajiex will meet at your hotel, transport you and organize the dives.
He's a facebook friend, that's how I contacted him;

What kind of lighting? Are these deep dives or night dives?

.
Some night dives,, some day dives, some shots snooted some others not.
Sorry not to say more but I am particpating to photo compettitions this year and don't want to say more on my own lighting "brew".

 

[lamarpaulski]

I always like to hear about Tulamben one of my fav places for macro.

I think last year I had the same feeling like yours, less critters, nothing new, I was under the impression of turning around photowise. I always had been diving with the same guide who by the way is excellent.
So this year I chose to give a freelance guide his chance, of course not the first freelance guide across the corner but someone who's already known in the pro photogs circle Ajiex Dharma. And that was a total blast!!! On top of that as he is a photogrpaher too, he knows what to look for and helps for lighting.

I thought I was re-discovering Tulamben again, we went to sites I had never been before east to Batu Belah and west past Kubu. All macro sites I had never dived, except for the slope, I beieve these sites are either too specialized macrowise or some too far away for the regular dive centre to take their guests there.
Ajiex didn't even bother taking me to Tulamben bay classics as the dropoff or coral garden, all less interesting in his view.

Of course the guy is a nudibranch fanatic, he spots nudis that I can't even without my +10 lens and names them all in latin at surface time. I named what I wanted to see and he just selected the sites for. So what I can recommend is that for your next trips you arrange with a freelance guide who also take care about the organization. there are more and more in Tulamben this year, three of the best are Ajiex of course, also Darmada "Nemo Tulamben" and Ketut Wisnu (ex Liberty)

Example of stuff I had never seen before in Tulamben Ajiex showed me:

These photos are amazing. That blue translucent shrimp ? atop the sponge is cover material for National Geo.