Bunaken

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We arrived in Bunaken at lunch, just in time to have one dive before the sun sets. So we got our cameras ready; this time my dad bought another strobe for himself, it was much lighter than mine but it's not as powerful. Before we got on the boat, we double checked our equipments and made sure the cameras are fine. Then we went in the boat, and head straight to Lekuan 3

When we went in, the wave drifts me away from the boat and I didn't have enough time to get my camera. So my dad carried it down for me, although he had many things on him already. As soon as we descend, I felt a problem with my regulator mouth piece, water kept coming in. I checked it and found that there was a hole on the sides of it. My dad told me to use my alternative regulator, so I did. When I was ready, I took my camera from my dad. I looked at it and I couldn't believe what I saw.

There was water in my casing, it filled a quarter of the casing. I gave it to my dad and he handed it over to the guide. The guide brought it up to the boat and let it dry. It was a devastating moment for me. I've only used that camera once and there was no hope for it to survive. It was flooded badly. I liked that camera so much, and I didn't even get a chance to take pictures with it in Manado. It was so unfair. I have checked it a million times that it was properly done up, but... it's just not my luck.

Apart from that, Lekuan 3 was a good place to dive. There were lots of fish and beautiful corals surrounded me all the time; there were also some nudibranchs but they're just the common nudibranch types (Chromodoris) which I pretty much find all the time.

Once we got back to the resort, i looked at my camera- there was nothing we could do about it. 😞
My dad said that I could use his camera (SP-350, which was originally mine until it leaked). Then he decided to buy another G-9. So As it was not released anymore, they don't have it in Manado. So he called my uncle in Jakarta. It was very hard to find it, my uncle went looking for it everywhere and only found it two days later. I thank him so much for this. He then sent it through the express mail service, and it should arrive in three days; just before we go to Lembeh.

Whilst waiting for the camera, I used the SP-350 for the next 2 days in Bunaken, that gives a total of 6 dives. That morning I headed for Alung Banua and i brought along the SP-350. SP-350 is a great camera, and this camera SHOULD have been very good as well- but because of the incident, it's gone slightly mental. It's still alright though. I lwould have to wait for ages before I could take the next shot. And by the time it's ready, the fish (or the animal) was already gone. So I decided to take some wide angles (it's the only thing that doesn't slow down the whole process, apart from the actual thing that RAW images always take a while to upload). Anyway, taking wide angle is really hard and I'm not very good at it. Well there's always a start, besides I'm a beginner and there are still so many things to learn about.

These pictures are actually so awesome because I get to set the white balance in the computer, no need for me to fuss around in the water. Even after editting, my results didn't met my satisfactory. So I kept trying and trying to get a better wide angle picture. Third dive of the day was in Muka Kampung. My dad gave me some tips for taking wide angle shots. It's pretty useful, and I made a slightly better result. I find wide angle pictures more challenging, and this will always atay in my mind.

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Comments

[lestiyo winarno]

Best..
i want to prepare going trip to bunaken, can i get information how much money need if i am trip from jakarta. salam, Lestiyo