Diving Bunaken - Day 3Aug 31, 2009
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Boat docked at Bunaken.
Dive boat of SeaBreeze Dive Resort.
View from the water of shore while out diving today.
I’m sitting here in the common area at the SeaBreeze Resort, and a makeshift band comprised of many of the Indonesian employees from here is currently playing a tropical island rendition of John Denver’s classic song “Country Roads.” Think Hawaii meets folk, and there you have it… Most of the band's songs have been in Indonesian or the local language here, but in any event, the musical backdrop makes for a very relaxing and enjoyable evening.
It is our last night here at the resort and on Bunaken, as subsequent to our 2 dives tomorrow, we’ll be heading back to Manado before heading to check out a nearby nature preserve. After 4 days straight of diving, we will be ready after tomorrow for a couple of days break on dry land.
Today we did 2 dives in the morning at the following dive sites: Pangulina and Mike‘s Point. Our diving group consisted of Vikki and I as well as 2 other couples, Rolf and Eva from Munich, Germany and Nik and Kirsten from Stuttgart, Germany. Both couples have been diving with us for the last several days as well, so it has been fun hanging out with them. Not to mention that it also presents me with the opportunity to once again practice my rusty German...
The dives today varied enormously from the dives we had done over the previous 2 days, as these particular dive sites are especially known for their large numbers of fish as opposed to their actual reefs. We saw a huge eagle ray as well as a large, hyperactive sea snake which seemed to wiggle endlessly through the water. Sea snakes are highly venomous, but unlike most land-based snakes, they do not have an extendible jaw. As such, sea snakes are only able to bite humans in areas where they can fit their mouth around, thereby limiting their bite potential mostly to earlobes and between the fingers and toes, for example. Nevertheless, I definitely did not try to swim toward the sea snake for a face to face encounter, to be sure.
I have been enjoying diving more and more lately, and I think this lies largely in the quality of the diving we have been experiencing. It is a lot of fun diving in clear waters with good visibility which teems with fish and colorful coral. I envision we’ll be doing a fair bit more of diving over the next few weeks.