Lembeh Resort - Day 3
Trip Start
Oct 30, 2008
1
14
19
Trip End
Nov 15, 2008
Bitung,
Sulawesi,
Indonesia
Monday, November 10, 2008
Muppet or Star Wars Creature?
Muppet or Star Wars Creature?
These are some of the funniest looking fish ever! Lucas and company had to steal some of their Star Wars creature ideas from these guys.
Muppet or Star Wars Creature?
They totally look like they could have been in the famous cantina scene! You might have seen them on the Muppet Show as well.
Muppet or Star Wars Creature?
They would have been right at home there. And the way they move around is just bizarre.
Muppet or Star Wars Creature?
They basically walk on bent pectoral fins that resemble bent arms with hands!
Muppet or Star Wars Creature?
Words can't describe them enough, so photos will have to do and maybe some video if you would like to see it when we get home.
Muppet or Star Wars Creature?
Muppet or Star Wars Creature?
Muppet or Star Wars Creature?
Muppet or Star Wars Creature?
Ribbon eel
We also saw a few different varieties of ribbon eels, which are long and thin and make their home in holes in the sand.
Ribbon eel
They stick their heads out along with a few inches of their bodies and do this mesmerizing little swaying motion; kind of like an upright cobra. Various colors and their open mouths made them cool photography subjects, so long as you could get the camera to focus on them. Their swaying definitely messes with you!
Ribbon eel
Of course there were many more nudibranchs,
Yet another nudibranch!
fingered dragonettes,
Fingered dragonette
scorpion fish, lion fish and the likes, but today was more devoted to frogfish hunting. Happy to say we were rewarded on all three dives! 
Shrimp hitching a ride on an urchin
Another cool couple of finds on dive 3 were a zebra crab and more emperor shrimp, all hitching rides on these large, beautiful sea urchins that looked like giant colorful pin cushions.
Zebra crab, hitching a ride on an urchin
Rhinopias scorpion fish - rare!
One of the finds of the day was a very rare type of scorpion fish called a rhinopias. Our guide, Abner said a guy was here from Germany all last week specifically looking for one and they never found one. Some great photos captured the find for us! It does resemble a frog fish, but it's part of the scorpion fish family.
The final big find, which was really still only one of the many awesome finds of the day, was a reef octopus sitting out in the open atop the reef.
Reef octopus
It was very patient as we snapped away with the camera! The octopuses we've seen so far are all on the small side, but this one was much more like what we're used to seeing back home when we're lucky enough to find the giant pacific octopus.
Reef octopus
Only one more day of diving! We'll do two dives tomorrow, finishing up our diving by 1pm so we'll have plenty of a safety margin for our flight from Manado back to Singapore. Stay tuned for the last of our diving adventures!!
Pam & Andy
