Time to dive finally. Indonesia, in particular Bunaken, features some of the world’s best diving and I was lucky to get several consecutive rain-free days to enjoy its underwater beauty. This is us walking to the dive boat in the morning:

In three days of diving I did eight dives, which was a lot for me. The first day I did a refresher dive as it had been two years since my last one, followed by two normal dives; the next day we did wreck diving; and the final day we took a day trip to the nearby Bangka Island for a very pleasant change of underwater scenery. Overall I got to experience several new types of dives, including the following. (I don’t have an underwater camera, but one of the divemasters took these photos for me.)

1) Wall dive — Where you dive along a wall of a large and seemingly bottomless hole. You move around keeping the wall of coral to one side of you while looking up and down at the sights. A little scary looking down, but beautiful scenery at your side. Here is a view from one of those dives:

2) Wreck dive — We visited a World War II Japanese cargo boat that was sunk by the US Navy in the 1940s. Coral has since grown all over the boat, creating a miniature reef. This was a deeper dive, at 31m (102 feet) below. This was a spectacular experience. As the wreck came into view while we descended, it felt just like a National Geographic documentary, as usually there’s no other way to see sights like this. At this depth good photos were hard to achieve.

Here are me, Juliet, and Alistair sitting on the wreck.

Here is the wreck with angelfish swimming around coral growing on the ship:

Here you can find me at the edge of the wreck, apparently doing jazz hands:

3) Muck dive — An unusual dive that takes place in murky brown waters to explore the unusual sea life there. Visibility was very poor — ~5 feet — and the dirty brown water felt like I was swimming in sewage. At least it was warm. I never had interest in a dive like this, but I’m glad I did it. While it wasn’t my favorite dive, it was interesting to see a different set of sea life.

Diving in Indonesia was close to ideal. The water was very warm (the temperature at depth was around 30° C!), and it features a wealth of sea life: beautiful fish swimming alone and in large schools, colorful hard and soft coral, and other creatures such as shrimp, eels, rays, and sea turtles. This majestic guy was about four feet long:

Some clownfish relax in their home:

Diving in Bunaken was a great to wrap up my trip (slowly). Next order of business: buy an underwater camera … time for more moonlighting.