Issue 1/2010 - My Lembeh Black & White

Yup one of the most anticipated trip of the year. Lembeh Straits. A trip almost canceled but with passion and persistence. We got there. Lembeh Straits offering amongst the best muck diving in this part of the world has now been chronicled.
So did it lived up to its reputation. Wildly so. She wooed my camera and bedded it forever. Now lost in her bosoms, I'll never see it again.
Even before the trip started I was already planning a lot of shots in my head and wanted to share tonnes of pictures with you lot, sadly not to be so. As fate would have it, rather than just simply post as I would normally do I decided to take on a little mini project.
While on the trip down to Lembeh, I was browsing through the latest edition of AsianDiver Magazine and pondered what it would be like to be and underwater photojournalist and a publicist for a magazine. Thought to myself it would be a pretty fun thing to do living it for a while pretending to be an editor of a magazine.
I knew already there are few dive magazines in PDF format available freely for download such as UwP and UWJ. So taking these dive magazines as a template for my pet project I started digging in. Was it easy, not really but I soon got the hang of things, editing here and there. Could have done it better though but I think with practice I could probably do it faster now.
So how did I fair. I'll let you be the judge of that. Here it is. Grab it while its still hot. The first ever unlimited issue and its FREE :). RIGHT CLICK and SAVE Offline viewing. My Lembeh - Black and White
So here it is. finally managed to embed.

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Posted by Lonely Diver Tuesday, April 13, 2010 8 comments

A tale of macro mania part 2

Was looking through some of ninamaro's photo collection from the recent Lembeh trip. She did have a couple of good shots of the highly sought after dragon / tiger shrimp. I have not personally seen one & unfortunately missed it in Lembeh. while pressing the zoom in & out button back and forth on the adobe lightroom, it took me sometime to locate the position of its eyes & other parts of the body. My curiosity began to grow & tried searching the internet for some additional information on this unique species. Well, to no avail; there is not much of info available on the web which I can find despite trying out 2 major search engines with Google & Yahoo.

All I got was it is a unique rare species & the scientific name is ceratophthalmus. Other than that, I was provided info related to : tiger shrimp tempura, Hong Kong sweet & sour tiger shrimp recipe & most of all the most listed results was an instant noodle by Weightwatches which bear the same name & claim to have low calorie as well ( 240 Kcl ) .. for 1 serving ... !!!

After searching for almost an hour, exhausted; the tiger shrimp low mein seems more appetizing than pursuing on the internet search. So, for now .. enjoy the pics guys ... & the low mein too if you happen to get hold of one ..
Here our Yummy Tiger Shrimp Lo Mein .. !!


Up close & personal with the dragon shrimp


Pair of these dragon shrimp in Police Pier, Lembeh Straits

Photo courtesy of Ninamaro

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Posted by scian ray 7 comments

A tale of macro mania part 1

As a newbie in scuba diving years ago, muck diving is like a pandora pox & has always kept me curios about. Lots of divers who I have met told me they prefer diving with the big fishes, pristine & colorful reefs. I kept wondering at some point is muck diving interesting at all ? What is that to see when in true muck diving there is no reef neither there is any corals around. Its just plain sandy bottom & in fact I could have just synonymously called it "Mud diving".

By looking at another perspective, big fish action is undoubtedly interesting & it comes with some challenging current & drift dive. However, for a change; I did try out muck diving & have since fell in-love with the vast variety of colorful little critters in our ocean. Now, in contrast to big fish action where your sightings could mostly base on your luck. If "they" happened to swim pass than you have an awesome dive. Muck diving depends much on your knowledge of the local reef, the habitat the critters are & those razor sharp eyes of yours to detect them. It's another type of challenge I would put it minus the strong currents (which is not always though). So, the next time; big fish action or little critters ??? both are equally interesting.

Interesting little critters from our muck diving in Lembeh Straits
An ever graceful lionfish swimming pass a background of pinkish red anemone
providing a photography opportunity which would otherwise be just another ordinary shot.

Pontohi seahorse which was first sighted in Lembeh Straits. This tiny subject is one of several pygmy seahorses that is not specific host dependent, so it doesn't need a sea fan as a host.
To read more click on Pontohi Seahorse

Frogfish are rather common sightings for muck diving but a hairy frogfish is more than unique.

Mix of fortune for me in Jahir dive point, visibility was poor, lost my fellow divers. But buddied by my cam & this lonely Coleman shrimp hiding on his/her colorful playground

Mimic octopus shown to us by our guides. Usually nestling in the sandy bottom with only their eyes popping out looking for prey. A total of 6 mimic octopuses was sighted at Batu Sandar.

"Critter hunt" just as the dive point sounded. Undoubtedly this Blue ring octopus was totally amazed just as more than 20 divers who took turn looking at him/her.

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Posted by scian ray Wednesday, April 7, 2010 6 comments

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who are we ...

We are a group of professionals. Strong passion & interest in scuba diving, marine life, photography and supports works of environmental conservation. Originally formed in the year 2005 at a small coastal town of Lahad Datu, Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. We are PADI members. Current activities focused mainly on PADI scuba courses, local & outbound diving trips & conservation activities.