A dive holiday to get over the long holiday.....

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No soon were we back from our travels we were planning a short dive holiday to recuperate from the big holiday. As soon as we set foot in Singapore, our transit location with Silkair from Kathmandu, Eric suggested a Christmas in the water at Lembeh Straits, the undisputed muck diving capital of the world. Having not been in the water since Thailand back in August we were itching to get wet and took all of a few seconds to agree.
The 14th December came around very quickly with us busy sorting out our lives in KL and the flat renovation. Off we trotted on a luxury coach to Singapore on 13th December, staying one night with Kevin before winging our way to the familar airport of Manado.

Choobs had already been at Bastianos on Bunaken Island for a few days and was almost done with his open water. A class A student he competed the course in 3 days and joined us on his first independent dive. The stormy weather over the following 3 days didn't really affect the diving and we got a good taste of what Bunaken is best for... wall diving. Rich played with his underwater camera and San San kept an eye on Choobs. The waters around Bunaken were a little murky for wide angle shots but macro was fine.

On 18th we made a move by boat, 1.5 hour mini-van ride and again boat across to the Lembeh Bastianos Resort on Lembeh Island. We met up with Kevin and Kathy there who had arrived from Singapore only the day before and managed to squeeze in an afternoon and night dive the same day.

Over the coming days we had lots of fun finding a Mimic Octopus, Coconut Octopi, Nudibranchs, Frog fish of all colours, a purple warty rhinopious (member of the scorpionfish family), orange lacy rhinopious, pairs of Ambon Scorpion fish, pink squat lobsters, stargazers, sand eels, orangutang crabs, many shrimps and crabs of all sizes and colours, Flying gurnards, numerous reef fish including juvenilles of the pinate batfish and baramundi cod..... the list is endless. Once again the Lembeh Straits reinforced their standing as muck dive heaven and we left fully satisfied and relaxed.

The night of the 23rd, our last day we treated the staff and ourselves to a massive firework display (over 50 that Kev and Kathy had bought in Manado on the way) and lots of beer and whisky.

All too soon it was over and we were on our way back to Singapore. We stayed over there for a few days to celebrate Christmas Eve with a party at Kevin's place and then made our way back to KL on 26th.

Hope you enjoy some of the photos we shot..........

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