Capturing the Moment

 Muck Diving in Amed, Bali  We had always heard about the muck diving possibilities in Amed, Bali. For the past three trips we had traveled just north of this community to stay and dive in Tulamben, where the big shipwreck is as well as good muck diving. It would be possible to drive between the two but since we had a few extra days at the end of our Indonesia time we decided to give Amed the go-ahead and really dive into what it has to offer. Tiger Shrimp Elusive, Tiny, Tiger Shrimp  We stayed at a place just outside of town called Puri Wirata, because it had a pool and its own dive shop. We flew into Bali in the middle of rush hour but managed to do some weaving in and out driving to get through it rather quickly. It was getting dark by the time we were making our way up the coastal road. I wouldn't want to drive in Bali in the daytime, so I found myself glad that Heidi had nodded off and wasn't watching our driver continue to bob and weave even in the dar...

Joruna funebris Nudibranchs of Bali:  It’s time for a treasure hunt, Bali-style. One of the guarantees of scuba diving in Indonesia is seeing lots of nudibranchs. The warm tropical waters here in Bali are home to hundreds of different species of beautiful sea slugs, some of which have probably yet to be identified. Even though they are brightly colored with psychedelic patterns it can still take a trained eye to find them. They are usually small, relatively still, and can blend in with all of the colorful coral and sponges that also live on the reefs. The amazing diversity of the nudibranchs here would be enough to satisfy the most experienced diver anywhere in the world….and to think that nudibranchs are just the icing on the cake to all the other amazing critters waiting to be found and photographed underwater.     Thecacera sp.5 Nembrotha feeding Thecacera sp.7 Doriprismatica atromarginata So far we have found some of our old favorit...

Five pictures of frogfish, five different colors. This is typical to see here in Bali after just a few dives. We did six dives in Tulamben and came back with five wildly different colors of frogfish. They are ambush predators so they camouflage in with their surroundings, and then with one of the fastest movements of any animal, they gulp in unaware fish passing too closely by. These frogfish that we found ranged in size from the size of a quarter (white), to the size of a fist (yellow).    Next on the list were scorpionfish. They are also an ambush predator, lying in wait for prey. My favorite scorpionfish to look for is the leaf scorpionfish. It camouflages itself as a submerged leaf, gently swaying in the current back and forth. Just like frogfish they come in all colors. We found a few yellow ones, a beautiful white one, and a couple of their bigger giant scorpionfish relatives.    These scorpionfish are beautiful, but deadly at the same tim...