Our first week of diving in Indonesia has been a mixed experience. The diving has been amazing, but the viral stomach bug that was doing the rounds not so much! The 3 day bug literally knocks the stuffing out of you and at least half the guests went down with it at some point during their stay.
Back to the good parts.... Jon and I completed our 100th dives on our first day here - quite a landmark for me, as I never intended to love diving given my previous pathological fear of water.
Our dive guide Frengky did a great job of finding all sorts of weird and wonderful sea life for us. The trip over to the marine park at Bunaken Island took a rather sluggish hour to hour and a half, so to do 3 dives in a day we would set off at 8.30 am and not get back till after 5 pm. The good thing is there is always plenty to see and as the water was warm (28 to 30 degrees) we were able to have at least an hour for each dive.
Above all it was the variety and beautiful colours of the corals and the fish that captivated us. We saw a few turtles and just 1 White tipped reef shark, but otherwise most were on the smaller side. For Jon and I our perennial favourites of cheeky clown fish and bumbling puffer fish were in abundance. So many amazing coloured anemones with the clown fish nuzzling into them and seeming to play hide and seek with you. All sizes of the family were represented with some up to 20cm long down to wee babies just 0.5cm long. Cute transparent shrimps with fluorescent purple extremities could often be found with them as well as another favourite being the hairy orang Utan crabs - so now we've seen orang utans on both land and sea.
Of all the incredible things we've seen, our favourite has to be the cuttlefish. Here they are 1-2ft long and are very friendly - they are also intelligent and you can sense this as they watch you watching them. Their beautiful iridescent eyes with a strange W shaped pupil look back at you as they hover and glide through the water as if floating on a gently ruffling skirt. One particular day we had the ultimate treat of watching them lay their eggs - Mr and Mrs Cuttlefish were hanging around near some coral as we came towards the end of our dive. Following our dive guide we settled slowly and calmly on the sandy bottom in between the coral. By chance I had picked the perfect spot for what would happen next. Mr Cuttlefish calmly regarded us from a few metres away, while Mrs Cuttlefish ruffled her White skirts and slowly advanced towards a small patch of coral that was next to me. Starting at the opposite side she gradually worked her way round towards me, with her tentacles unfurling to a central point as she squeezed them in between the branches of the coral. As she came ever closer (within less than a metre from where I was watching), I could see that she was rolling a little egg down to the end of her tentacles and delicately placing it in the protection of the coral branches. Now that I looked closely I could see the little translucent White sacs were dotted throughout the branches with a tiny White form already visible inside. After she had laid around 20 eggs she gently floated away. She looked so serene with her White skirts and her eyes an iridescent green (she would have looked good at any Abba Tribute concert with eyeshadow like that), and I felt truly lucky that she was so unafraid of us that we were able to witness this.
Outside of the water we were able to enjoy the beautiful resort - the staff were all lovely and knew our names. The infinity pool was a fabulous setting for our evening sundowner cocktail and the restaurant looked over the water. All in all a wonderful place to stay.