The Dugong Quest

---

We've been on a quest to see a dugong for a long time. Our first attempt was on the island of Ko Libong in Thailand and involved being on a boat cruising around a sea grass filled bay. No dugong. Our next attempt was at Marsa Alam in Egypt. Apparently, Dennis the resident duging makes a regular appearance. We did a 2 1/2 hour snorkel but no Dennis. Third time lucky...

Our third attempt was at Bunaken Island. We'd heard the stories of dugong just offshore in front of our resortand we'd met a Norwegian family in the Togeans who had seen a family of dugongs while snorkelling. We did two 2-hour snorkels, floating along the spectacular drop off, whizzing past clouds of fish, many turtles and colorful coral while being carried by the current, then fighting our way back against the current along the shallow sea grass in the hopes of seeing a dugong muching on its favorite food. No dugong. We were beginning to admit defeat yet again.

When we were not snorkelling, we were generally diving. On our last day on Bunaken, our disorganized dive shop took us out for a dive and then announced that we were going straight to the next site, which we hadn't signed up for. It wasn't one of the well-known sites so we decided to sit it out on the boat. The divers jumped in and I went for a quick snorkel before going back up to wait on the boat. Our dive master and the boat crew were talking in Indonesian but we heard the word, "dugong". Our ears picked up. "Dugong?" I asked hopefully, expecting it to be a similar Indonesian word. Obe, our dive master, said he'd seen it on the surface about 25 meters from our boat. There was no time to lose. We grabbed our mask and snorkels and I fell over in my haste but didn't care. I swam as fast as I could in the general direction pointed out. Scott soon caught up to me and overtook me. A few seconds later a big hulking body loomed in front of us - a dugong! I could hardly believe it! We swam quickly to keep up with it and got within 10 to 15 feet from it before another dugong joined us. They two dugongs spent about 20 seconds twisting and turning around in the water together as if playing, split apart, then came togehter again briefly before speeding out in opposite directions. Scott followed one and I followed the other until we lost them. Wow! We were honestly smiling for days about it!

We really enjoyed out time on Bunaken. The accommodation was good, the food excellent,and the diving beautiful, so we were sad to have to leave. It also meant that we were truly headed to our final destination of the two-month trip - Lembeh Strait.

---

Photos

A dugong!
This photo was taken from the internet...but it shows what we saw, even though we saw two of them!!!

Dugong!
Again, stolen from the internet, but you get the idea!