Ya, Ya, I know I keep on copying the blog content from my own commercial blog… really busy and it’s part of my life … read if you are interested… hehehehe…

“Finally, we started our very own liveaboard in Komodo National Park, Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia! The boat construction started 20th June and estimated to start cruising on end of October or November; and will mainly explore the fantastic and rich dive sites of Komodo National Park and West Flores, Indonesia.

Click on the images to see the layout, it’s called Blue Dragon:

Boat specification: Lenght. 25m, weight. 6m, 3 attached bathroom a/c cabins, 3 common bathroom a/c cabins, capacity. 12 pax, cruising speed. 8 knots, Radar, Deep Sounder, Compass, radio, life jacket, life boat, dive facility, 2 small boats.

Click on Komodo trip review; Komodo site information

I just came from the construction site visit and took some images at the very beginning and the most current development (13th July 2008)

The boat is a modified Southern Sulawesi well known Buginese Phinisi Schooner. It sailed from the production place to Madagascar more than 1500 years ago. The special thing about this type of boat construction is the strong, handmade external hull skeleton (frame) that can with stand all type of condition. The main construction material is Iron and Teak wood, class 1 - quality and durability is guaranteed.

Well, can wait to dive with it 3 months later and will start to introduce it to everybody on end of August 2008.”

So, how?

Ya, I should upload those Komodo photos before this… mainly because I haven’t got the chance to meet zoe to claim some nice nudibranch images - OK, not too much excuses…

Layang-Layang, it’s the blue that captured me (they keep on say it’s turquoise). The best thing that happened is the lake-flat water and clear sky (most of the time), as the group before me met the Philippines typhoon and hardly dive outside the lagoon - well, it’s open sea out there, anything can happen.

Yes, you need luck to have great dive in Layang-Layang. According to the logbook at the dive centr, the possibility of hammerhead schooling sighting is 1 boat per week (around 50 boats out), and normally morning dive at Gorgonian Forest or Wrasse Strip - our luck came on the last day, 2nd last dive - when Marko joint us (he saw schooling hammerhead, 2 manta rays, schooling devil ray and thresher shark, in 4 dives when we’re there, and we don’t want to know what else he saw after we left…) - there were 60+ (Pietr said 100+, I’m too near to the schooling, lost count) moving from The Point to us in Gorgonian Forest.

Some said it’s the mating aggregation, but I think they just come out for a morning jog. Each of them is about 3+metre long, and swimming slow - should mating behave so? I heard shark mate violently

How I’ll describe Layang-Layang? As I wrote, blue (that captured me, turquoise is nice, but the blue is the main role). Forget about the macro (unless you are doing night dive), set your objective right - into the blue, look for blue shadow, if you are not lucky, you’ve dive Layang-Layang; if you are lucky, everything is guaranteed - as the resort dive manager said. Oh ya… do take good care of your dive time depth while you are in the blue, and always have a buddy with you to look at in case you lost your sight focus (he/she may be the ONLY thing in the blue) that can cause dizziness.

Thanks pluto and Chia for supplying images - I think I really need to buy my own underwater camera already…

Ya, ya, I know I’ve skipped many many reviews that I suppose to write - but the past 2 months I’ve been travelling really crazy - Bali, Komodo, Sabah, Layang-Layang, Mataking, Bubbles… all work travel (it’s not as fun as you think, although it’s quite fun -

Ya - having many images that I should upload to the blog, or the bfdive blog… but the devil called ‘excuses’ always doing his best to stop me… and always successful! Today I finally won him over the battle and see what I’ve posted:-


Wa hahahahaha… Thank you miss Chew Ming Yee, who are not a photographer at all (no lar, when she is taking her field work, those plants, it’s actually quite nice). It’s was taken during the friend-friend Bali trip, and all friends said the images (along with other images) looks like porn shot… I agree actually, but who caresssssss!!!

Many of the common fish certainly not listed here, as well as unique coral and crabs, reef lobster, spiny lobster… The rest of the thing such as photos will be pasted later when I’m back to KL… and if I’m free… sorry ya?

Image 1: just like any little octopus
Image 2: Martin may be a bit too near to it, it started to show the ‘blue dot’
Image 3: Ya, ya, it’s a blue ring

I was so happy that I finally saw one myself… but never expect to see it here. Now Bubbles have found the great muck diving site, I think I’ll go there more often. lalalalalalala - read the previous post about other stuffs we saw there!
 

Bubbles is were we started our dive career. We planned to develop it into a dive/nature education centre, but we wonder if we’ve done enough to achieve that - or had diverted our direction by reality or survival… I’ll describe Bubbles by - the resort, the dive centre and the dive -

It’s situated in an isolated beach of Tanjung Tukas, with 700m beach and surrounded by island tropical rain forest. With the optimum capacity of 50 pax (max to 80pax), it’s a very suitable place for family, any educational/training programme, (dive) courses - and a true hideaway from busy life (of course, if that’s what you are looking for). It has simple accommodation, good food, but best natural and comfortable environment. It has 3 types of rooms- A-frame (a/c with hot water), family (a/c with hot water) and fan room (no hot water).

The restaurant prepare local, Chinese, some Thai and western cooking. You may let the cook to make his best choice for you by taking the packaged food, or ala cart.

We’ve make 2 forest trails for those who want to see what is surrounding Bubbles - one short and simple specially for night trekking and the other one is more challenging with island rain forest view. Do follow the marking tape as sign to follow while exploring the trail - always prepare food, drink, compass and bring along handphone in case you wonder around to go back to the resort (anyway, best pay our guide). You can see leaf monkey, flying lemur, squirrel, white bellied eagle, imperial dove, giant millipede, big trees with wide buttresses… and certainly good exercise.

Next will be the dive centre - Pei See Hwang, Ronnie Ng, Eric Ng are all very experienced dive instructors - all of them have been staying on the island for > 8 years, you may interview them if they love to stay there, or trapped there :). For us, safety first, under all circumstances. Safety inclusive of dive equipment, dive site selection, dive leading/guiding, site and environment (sea or weather) consideration, emergency plan and procedure… The other advantage Bubbles has is - the passion, knowledge and experience about marine life - Talk to them and you’ll know.

I drew some of the dive sites for Bubbles 3 years ago, may give you some clue about the dive there (Perhentian Island Dive Site). Diving is leisure, easy, with mild-moderate current, 5m - 20m visibility, with water temperature of 28 - 30C. It has almost the same underwater topography and marine life like other island in east coast Peninsular Malaysia, except for the 4 ship wrecks, and the newly discovered muck diving, although you need to be more experienced to dive these areas. In the very recent dive I made there (06th April 2008), we even discover the Indo-Pacific Blue Ringed Octopus, spider crab, snake eel, many sea horse and unique nudibranch such as bornella, malibe, arminid…

We still haven’t open up these new site to many divers as it’s fragile. Diver with poor buoyancy control which may kick up sands or landing on the creature may destroy the habitat - dangerous for the diver too (note: blue ringed octopus is one of the most poisonous creature on earth - together with stonefish, krait…). Bubbles is conducting various experiential programmes, and small events to enhance the awareness of public (or at least people who have been there) about the environment we are staying.

Issue about turtle - there are many turtles coming to Bubbles beach to ‘try’ to lay egg - if there is no disturbance. We can’t conduct the ‘turtle laying egg’ tour cause we don’t think the animal is comfortable to lay egg with spot light shining on the private part or eyes… not that we want to humanize the animal :). Then poacher - local culture conflict with eco-tourism is again another conflict we have on taking care of the animal. Things actually getting better with the help of volunteer, but much awareness programme needed to be conducted, cause ‘public’ is the key to conservation. Well, at least do what we can. To those who supported Bubbles and believe the same as us thank you.

[Notice: This sound like an advertisement, or you may choose to click onto the page to read on the information only - well, at least to spread some knowledge about Earth, ya? the place we've live for all our life]

Earth Day is to celebrate the existing of Earth that support our life. We could choose to live on it taking for granted that’s what suppose to be, or we can understand it more and try to work closely with it for the better sustainability -

[to read the information about our planet earth, click onto the image]

On the normal snorkeling or diving package, we will insert some of the ‘get to know Earth’ activities. Well - have to do it at weekend, therefore the date is 25 - 27 Apr 2008 - for package information, do contact bfdive.

[Notice 2: ya ya ya... I'm commercial, my idea is, as long as if I do business not creating any harm to anybody or ...the Earth, then it's fine, ya? thank you for reading :)]

Then a new nudibranch for us found in Tachai (well, not saying I know and I saw many species already. Please give me a bit time to find out the name, ok?), the maldivian pikachu nudibranch still at the same spot in Deep Six. The sea was calm and the weather was very hot - underwater visibility is good (ranged from 15 - 20m) and cleared from hydroid.

The one thing that’s strange is - it’s almost full moon around the date we dive, but there are hardly any strong current. Tidal current was caused mainly by the moon, and full moon normally will affect the sea surface condition and current, but not in this trip. May be other factor that counterpart the current and wave, I don’t know, think need more knowledgeable people to tell (certainly not me, I’m shallow, and dive shallow)

We were happy this trip - we certainly appreciate more and lower down our ‘ideal’ expectation after we lost or we missed something before; taken thing for granted is in human nature, since we cannot get rid of it, then just live with it - we missed, we lost, we regret, if we are lucky, we meet again, life goes on.