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Published: January 12th 2014
On the boat heading over the Lembeh StraitThe final leg of our trip took us back up to Northern Sulawesi. The first stop was Lembeh Strait, famous in the diving world for being the "Critter Capital of the World." Interestingly, it is a kind of hell for fish with a litter-strewn black sand sea bed seemingly devoid of any marine life. On closer inspection, however, you can find a myriad of strange, rare, and often creepy critters. Scott and I took the same approach as in Komodo, splitting the diving up while one person stayed with Kyla. After the first day I wasn't sure we'd done the right thing. Waiting on the boat had been hot for Kyla and our room at Two Fish Resort was just as hot as we didn't have air-conditioning for the first time on the trip. The subsequent days were cooler thankfully, due in part to some slightly stormy weather. It worked out OK in the end and we got some good dives in, seeing things like Ambon scorpion fish, devil fish, octopus, flamboyant octopus, frog fish, and cuttlefish to name but a few. There were also many tine but beautiful nudi-branches. I felt kind of sorry for them, crawling along the murky
On our way to Two Fish Resortocean floor in all their splendor.
After three days I was ready to go back to pretty coral diving so convinced Scott it was time to move on to Bunaken Island (fish heaven). Two Fish Resort transferred us in a private taxi and boat connection. Kyla really enjoyed bouncing around in the back seat with mommy and daddy, playing peek-a-boo with a plastic bag. She's going to get a rude awakening when she goes home and has to travel in her car seat again!
Our room at Two Fish Bunaken was huge which allowed us to put the mattress on the floor like we'd done in Kuta. It felt much safer than Lembeh and Komodo, where Kyla had slept high up on our bed. So much for the travel crib/tent. I hadn't tried it since the very start of the trip when closing the zip had woken her up, much to my annoyance, as we were both super sleep deprived.
On our first morning on Bunaken we did a morning dive each which worked well and then spent the rest of the day at the pool. That night Scott woke up twice in the night to throw
Hammocks make great baby swings!up so we took the next day easy, just lounging by the pool and watching the dive classes. We got a bit more diving in before we had to move on. On our last night we were walking to dinner at the resort when I spotted some flashing lights high in the trees above us - fireflies! Kyla was mesmerized and didn't quite know what to make of them. It felt like a nice goodbye from the island wildlife.
The next morning we had to wade across the mangrove forest stumps to reach the boat as it was low tide. The resort carried out our big backpacks for us which was helpful. We got onto the small boat and it was strange to be leaving. We were in the swing of it and so was Kyla. It seemed a shame to go home, back to normality. She had adapted by now to what must have seemed to her like her new life - daddy didn't go to work, we got onto a boat every day and mommy & daddy took turns disappearing under the water for an hour at a time, we ate dinner at a strange place each
Kyla got a little obsessed with this wall hanging in our room!night with no high chairs, and she got to sleep in bed between us each night. And no car seats. Oh, and everywhere we went she was the center at attention. I think she was pretty happy!
With these thoughts going through my head, I suddenly heard a slight commotion. Dolphins had been spotted! The boat driver sped up and steered a little to the side and soon the dolphins were swimming in the wake under the front of the boat. In retrospect this might have been a Michael-Jackson-over-the-balcony-moment, but I held onto Kyla as we peered over the edge of the fast moving boat and she saw the dolphins clearly. It seemed like another friendly little goodbye from the critters of the island.
That night we stayed in an awful room where we had to kill the mosquitoes before going to bed, only to have to wake Kyla up in the middle of the night for our flight back to Bali. At least she didn't have a diaper explosion in the airport this time!
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