DEEP Indonesia 2013

Time passes so fast! It's time for this year 2013 DEEP Indonesia Exhibition! It feels like only yesterday we are busy preparing and arranging the DEEP Indonesia 2012 which turned to be very successful event for us from Bali Marine Sports! Thank God! 

So if you are a diver or keen to learn to dive and try scuba diving, or just an ocean lover, come and visit us during the exhibition on this coming early April 2013 at Jakarta Convention Center (JCC). Even though this year you won't see me as I am still here in Melbourne, Australia, but you can always meet my best buddy, Nicky Wirawan! Find out from him and feel free to customize your dive plan and get our special offer for exploring Indonesia underwater!

So, just don't miss it! :D

Underwater Life in The Komodo National Park

What I like most about diving and the underwater is seeing the behavior of the marine creatures. I may seen their similar types in my other diving experiences in another places, but I never stop wonder and admiring how pretty and amazing they are! Seeing them breathing, swimming and dancing, it makes me feel alive and blessed! 

I took lots of underwater photos during this Komodo Diving trip, but here are some I especially choose to be display in here. 

Take nothing, but pictures. Leave nothing, but bubbles! 

(Please note for photos without my name-tag goes to my diving friend, Purwanto Nugroho). 

I'm in Love with Flores Island!

Another diving exploration with Bali Marine Sports to beautiful Indonesia, this time we are heading to Flores and Komodo Islands in East Nusa Tenggara during last 17-21 October 2012. Together with new diving friends, 13 of us, flying to Labuhan Bajo by Merpati Airlines, staying in a very comfort and cozy hotel, Bintang Flores Hotel which providing us with a gorgeous ocean view from our window, and exploring various dive sites in its surrounding islands: Sebayur Kecil, Castle Rock, Crystal Bomie, Tatawa Besar, Manta Point, Siaba Kecil, Batu Bolong, and Dead Man's Rock.

Here are some photos from our journey. A new heaven that I just discover. Yes! A new heaven, and I've falling in love with this island!

This is the view from my hotel room. Made me feel so comfort with the ocean view. Made me feel so blessed to have this view as the first thing that I see when I open my eyes and wake up on the morning before we go for diving!

Further about Komodo National Park as seen on my below photo. It is located in the center of the of the Indonesian archipelago, between the island of Sumbawa and Flores. Established in 1980, initially the main purpose was to conserve the unique Komodo dragon (Varnus Komodoensis) and its habitat. In 1986, the Park was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. 

For this time trip, we all stayed at the mainland. From our hotel, it took about an hours by boat to go to our dive sites destination. I used to say that my most favorite diving spots are in Papua (Raja Ampat and Cendrawasih Bay water) and of course Bali. But I have to say that I am in love with this province of East Nusa Tenggara, especially with Flores and Komodo Island. I have visited the capital city of the province few years ago, Kupang, but I wasn't really as excited as today's visit! I am in love with both surface and the underwater view!

The corals in Komodo National park are pristine, with mantas, sharks, turtles,  many pelagic, to the tiny pygmy seahorses, nudibranchs, frog fish, you name it we’ve got it. The sites vary from gentle easy coral slopes to heart pounding adrenalin rides, from the warm waters of the Flores Sea in the north to the chillier waters down south in the Indian Ocean, the underwater terrain is so varied with sheer cliff walls, pinnacles, channels, sandy flat bottoms, underwater plateaus, slopes, caves, swim-throughs, all with varying colours, sizes and types of coral both hard and soft.

3 days for diving and exploring the beauty of the islands and its underwater world, definitely not enough! I feel so sad when I have to leave the island. But one thing for sure and I've pray for it, that there will another time that I can visit the islands again and explore more beautiful diving sites in there! 

I would like to express my special thanks to my newly diving buddy, mas Purwanto Nugroho. These two below photos are captured by him. Look forward for another diving adventure with you! :) And to my always and very special diving-buddy, Nicky Wirawan, from Bali Marine Sports...I've asked for this trip and you made it came true! Forever be my buddy!

    

Love Your Ocean. Love The Sea Creatures.

The above photo I copied from The Sea Shepherd Asia, which taken from Arabian waters.
The Chinese adore the meat of Whale Shark, which they call " Tofu Shark". Fins that size fetch a fortune, each! With no laws about shark fishing in Arabian waters, these animals are easy prey for poachers!

If you care about this beautiful creature, please join in spreading the news and promote the message to protect Whale Sharks and other species, including our natural resources. Please help and contribute to stop scene like this! If not us (human), then who else?

Love your ocean, love the sea creatures!

2012 Deep & Extreme Indonesia

DEEP & EXTREME Indonesia 2012 will soon be held on next coming March 29 - April 1, 2012. This is the only international dive exhibition in Indonesia and offers first hand information about the marine life and dive sites in Indonesia, and features the newest scuba diving equipments in the market! This exhibition also aims to educate broader people on scuba diving, and as an excellent place for networking, especially for divers and ocean lovers! :D

So if you are a diver, a diver's lover, or an ocean's lover, please visit our Bali Marine Sports' booth number B 117 at Jakarta Convention Center. We offer lots of diving and fishing packages with super sale price, not just in Bali underwater, but across Indonesia and South East Asia!

Let us introduce you to beautiful Indonesia underwater world! Meet and greet us at 2012 DEEP Indonesia! :D

Marpaung Goes Diving

(with my siblings at Tulamben Beach)

(my 13 y.o. niece with her 1st scuba diving experience)

(my 2nd older brother with school of Jack Fish)

(my oldest brother explored the USST Liberty Wreck)

(our happy faces, finally we could dive together)

In regards of family life, I always wanted to introduce scuba diving to my sibling, in law, niece and nephew. Specially to my two older brothers and my only niece, Christie. But our holiday schedule never matched to one another, only recently we finally could managed time to have a-Marpaung's holiday together in Bali! So I took them all to one my favorite spot in Bali, the famous Tulamben in Eastern Bali! :D

So here are some photos when I introduced scuba diving to my two older brothers and my niece. I feel so happy that I finally could introduced the beauty of the underwater and seeing the excitement at their happy faces!

My thanks and appreciation to my dive buddy, Nicky Wirawan from Bali Marine Sports!

Thank you, dear Lord, to fulfilled another dream and desire of mine! God is good!

Raja Ampat Islands, Heaven on Earth!

Another dream came true! Thank GOD...!

Since last 2005, this was the 1st time I heard about Raja Ampat Islands, I always want to visit this place. But unfortunately even though I was living in Papua on that time, but as a staff of the United Nations, we had a strict policy that even for a holiday we must get a security clearance to enter specially a remote area, including in Papua, and I never get that clearance!

But I finally could visited the islands on last April 9-16th. Together with a group of 27 people, mostly from Thailand, we sailed to Raja Ampat Islands with charter the boat of Sea Safari 8. It was an unforgettable trip to this country's largest national marine parks which offers a range of marine life that believed to be the most diverse on the planet!

The Raja Ampat Islands in West Papua is group spreads out over a huge area and consists of over 610 islands. The four largest islands are Waigeo, Batanta, Salawati and Misool. The area's reefs are covered in a diverse selection of both hard and soft corals. Most of the areas reefs are pristine, with mile after mile of perfect hard corals, drift after drift of soft corals of many species and colors ranging from brilliant red, to shocking yellow pretty pink and exotic purple. Most of reef dives are very colorful....totally awesome!

During this expedition I had a chance to dive at Waigeo Island (at Blue Magic and Batu Lima point), Mioskon Island (at Mioskon Reef point), Kri Island (at Sardine Reef point), Mansuar Island (at Manta Sandy point), Farondi Island (at Three Sisters point), Misool Island (at Lonely Rock point and Shadow Reef point), Boo Island, and Fiabacet Island (at Nudi Rock point, and Tagboat Rock point).

The territory within the islands is enormous, covering 9,8 million acres of land and sea, it's a home of 540 types of coral, more than 1,000 types of coral fish and 700 types of mollusks! This makes it the most diverse living library for world's coral reef and underwater biota! According to a report by The Nature Conservancy and Conservation International, around 75% of the world's species live in this awesome islands!

Even though its located in a remote area in Eastern Indonesia, from Jakarta you have to fly to Sorong for about 5-6 hours, then continue by boat for another 20 hours (to Misool Island as the farthest) , but it's truly worth it, at least once in your life, you must visit this heaven in earth!

This Time Trying Malaysia Underwater

On last October 20-25, 2010, together with a group of Thailand divers from The Living Sea, I went for diving in Sabah state of Malaysia. Its located at the Celebes sea, east of the major town of Tawau, and off the cost of Borneo, East Indonesia on the island of Borneo, or now known as Kalimantan.

From Jakarta, I must flied to Kuala Lumpur, it's about 2 hours, then continued by another flight to Tawau for about 2.5 hours, took a car driving for about 1 hour to Semporna city, stayed for a night at Sea Fest Hotel as we arrived on the late evening, and continued on the next day early morning, this time by speed boat for another 1 hour journey to Mabul Island. We stayed here at a very beautiful resort of Sipadan Water Village. I love this resort very much !!!

I was honestly quite shocked when I witness the beauty of the islands that we visited : Mabul, Siamil, Kapalai, and Sipadan. Especially the underwater scenes and the rich of its marine creatures. I love turtles, and I found them many in those islands ! I love sharks, and I met lots of white tip sharks, swimming elegantly ! School of Barracuda, Jack fish, Bumphead, Napoleon, and many others ! Including, amazingly, just in front of the resort, at the Paradise 2 site, for the first time I finally seeing many of beautiful mandarin fish !!! I visited Ambon in Mollucas Island and to Bunaken in North Sulawesi last year, but failed to seeing them ! Less than a week diving in Sipadan and its surrounding is just not enough for me !!! :)

As Indonesian, and honestly have this kind of dislike feeling to Malaysian (for many times they claimed and steel many of our assets, including the island of Sipadan and Ligitan), I was unsure to join into this trip, and have a feeling that the islands won't be as beautiful as many other islands in Indonesia. But I was wrong, and have to admit on the good work that the Government of Malaysia has done to protect and maintain the islands. With a big heart, I must say that we, specially our government, must learn from what they do in term of protecting the nature of its island. The Malaysian government announced restrictions on the number of tourist visiting the island of Sipadan, only 100 divers daily. By doing this, it protect the nature and the life underneath. I wish our government seriously consider to do the same such as for diving restriction in Nusa Penida Islands in Bali. Just to let you know, that during Mola's season, there will be hundreds divers down at the island, don't you think it will scary the marine creatures there, and on the same time it may destroy the environment too !

Another story of my life, another diving, and this time at Malaysia underwater !

Mola's Performance

These are some photo that I've taken during my last weekend dive gateway to Penida Island in Bali. This time trip was truly my lucky day ! It seemed that the ocean and the living sea there were smiling to me and my group. In this trip, we had 3 dives across the Penida Island which were at the Christal Bay site, the Manta Point, and last at the Cave site.

During our first dive at Christal Bay, we met the underwater diva: the Mola-mola or the Oceanic Sunfish, the heaviest known bony fish in the world with average adult weight of 1,000 kg ! Mola is actually live in 300 m depth below, but during the period of July-early November you may find this unique creatures at above 40 m depth. And I consider my self as "a lucky blessed" diver for this last Saturday, I met Mola in a minute after I jumped in to the blue water, at 17 m depth only, and she was having his skin cleaning performance for more than 20 minutes. I was about less than a meter away from her. This was my very best intimate moment with her. We were so close to each other, and she didn't even scared of me, I felt she even come closer to me specially when I shot my underwater video on her ! Yaay .... !!! :) Many divers from around the world are coming to Bali during this season just to see her, some of them could see her for a minute before she goes down again to the deep blue water, some could see her only on a very deep dark down there (sometimes we may need to go down to below 40 m depths!), but heiiii, 'am trully lucky right to see this beautiful Mola in almost every dive trip that I have in this Penida Island :)

In my second dive at Manta Point, I met the Black King Manta, one of the rare manta species to see at this site. Oh ya ! On our way from the 1st dive spot to the 2nd one, on the middle of the sea we met with a group of dolphins ! Another living attraction from the marine creatures and its trully awesome !!! At the 2nd dive we had which was the underwater cave diving, surprisingly I met with one sleeping white tip shark ! yess....shark !!! So close, a meter away from me and my buddy !!! And last we met with a giant lobster ! Hahhh, what a complete package of diving, all in a day trip only !

I just falling in love with those underwater creatures, especially the Mola ! :)

Meet Brenda, The Pink Dolphin

She is cute, isn't she ? :)

This pink dolphin's name is Brenda. I met her first time when I visited Singapore Sea World, and saw her performance. Then my friend, Gary Goh, introduced me to her trainer after the show, and brought me to Brenda ! She is so smart, and adorable ! When I took her photo, she was just acting as you may see her on the above photos ! She is very photogenic and narcist too ! :)

She reminds me of my first experience about 5 years ago, seeing life dolphins, more than 30 dolphins, swimming freely, alive, and they were following our boat, when I travelled to Urbas Island in eastern Biak Island, Papua. This was one of my unforgettable moment when I lived in Papua.

And since then, I just never stop admiring dolphin and other marine creatures !

Back about dolphins, do you know that they can live for more than 30 years old ?! Yes !!! And they can sleep about 8 hours a day, just like us ! When they sleep, only half of their brain is passive and they can be seen resting, on the water surface, with one eye open ! After some time they will close that eye, and open the other, and alternate like this throughout their nap !

Another interesting fact about dolphins, are their behaviour when one of them are sick. Members of their group will gather around and support the sick one to the surface to breathe. They may look after the sick one for hours or even days ! Isn't it so sweet ???

Bali Manta Lover

Another photos of mine taken during our dive in Manta Point at South West Nusa Penida Island. The spot is sometimes calm, and sometimes turning into a whirlpool due to its strong wave and currents.

This photo taken during last mid of August 2010, and heyyy...!!! We met with 14 mantas !

Great dive...with great people and crew from Bali Marine Sports.

My 1st Underwater Video : Dancing with Manta

Finally... ! I can upload my first underwater video ! :D May you enjoy this one, readers ! :D

Deep Indonesia 2010, Meet Bali Marine Sports

The second combined show of DEEP and EXTREME Indonesia 2010 will be held on March, 12 – 14 , 2010 at Hall B, Jakarta Convention Center. DEEP and EXTREME Indonesia will continue to grow to be a successful combined show in this region based on Indonesia’s huge and growing market of diving, water sports, extreme sports, eco tourism and adventure travel industries.

My diving coach, Nicky Wirawan, from Bali Marine Sports, wrote on his facebook status that he has a strong belief and confidence that Deep Indonesia 2010 will take a significantly important role in the future for Indonesia in promoting and encouraging scuba diving as a fun, safe activity and as a modern life style...and I fully agreed with him, specially on the last part :D

Welcome Deep Indonesia 2010, and hope to see you [diver or potential divers ehm...]. Let's come and visit Nicky and his team at Bali Government booth ! :D

About Manta Ray...

Here are some facts about Manta Ray, that you may interested to know, as I do :)

As one of fascinating creatures that live in the water, Manta Ray seems to be such a mystery to most people [and divers as well !]. Exploring the facts about them may help us to see them for what they really are.

Manta's size can be up 25 feet in length and weight as much as 5,000 pounds. Their average rate of life span are over 20 years. They can lose their protective mucus membrane if they are touched by humans.

Manta has the largest brain to body ratio of all sharks and rays on earth. They are very close relatives of the shark. Ironically, sharks as well as whales are their main predators. They are also closely related to the stingray, but they don’t have a stinger.

They are amazing when it comes to the acrobatics that they display.

The Manta Ray is classified as a fish. It is one of the largest and it continues to be one that we know the least about. Whoaaa !!!

They don’t have a skeleton that is made from bone.

The smallest species of Manta Ray is the Mobula Diabolis. It is only about 2 feet in length.

There are myths that the Manta Ray will consume people but they are false. These are very gentle creatures that are able to get close to humans without harming them [believe me, I have proved it though, ehm...]

The Manta Ray is only surpassed in size in the marine world by sharks and whales.

One of the reasons why people used to think that the Manta Ray was dangerous is because the body appears to be like a huge bat.

The open fins of a Manta Ray can be more than 20 feet in length.

While the Manta Ray has many rows of sharp teeth, they aren’t used for eating. Instead they have a filtering system.

The Manta Ray doesn’t have a nose.

The name Manta means blanket, and the fact that this creature looks like a blanket as it moves in the water is part of the namesake.

The mouth of the Manta Ray is located on the top of the head instead of on the bottom.

They are the only jawed vertebrates that also have limbs.

Many people view the Manta Ray as a shark that has been flattened out due to the overall anatomy that it features.

The movement of the fins through the water is very similar to that of a bird flapping its wings.

Many people assume that the Manta Ray is dangerous due to the fact that the Sting Ray is. However, they don’t have a stinger at all.

Many Manta Rays blend in well at the shoreline. They tend to get stepped on by people that don’t have a clue what is below their feet.

They are extremely fast swimmers, and also considered to be one of the most graceful as they move around. If you don’t look quickly though one can be gone before you realize it was there.

Wanne meet them in person ??? Come, and let's dive with me ! :)

[The above info was taken from various sources]

Playin' Time with Mantas

Here are some of my underwater photos during my last Bali Year-End Trip, from Dec 25, 2009 to January 5th, 2010.

It was really amazing moments ! I finally have a chance to visit Manta Point, at west Nusa Penida Islands. Together with my dive buddy, we've tried several times to visit this famous site. Unfortunately as the site is very open to the elements, many times heavy winds and strong currents make it impossible for us to visit this dive site. But during this year-end holiday, it's kinda a new year gift for me, the whether was so good, the water was so calm and warm, and lots of mantas around, even the black manta, king of mantas !

So enjoy these photos ! And I am hoping to upload my underwater video dancing with Manta real... soon ! Just wait, okay ??? :)

Another thanks and appreciation to Nicky Wirawan from Bali Marine Sports, for his willingness to be my underwater model, and of course, for being my underwater guardian....you are the best, coach !!! :)

My Fish Portrait

These are some photos that I took during my Ambon, Maluku, gateway on last Nov 25-30th, 2009. I went there to join an underwater photo competition organized by Forum Selam. I paid some amount just like everybody else. Unfortunately, I was disappointed with their unprofessional conduct. Without even noticing me, they didn't even put one picture of mine into the contest, while I never told them that I withdraw from it. They just suddenly announced the winner ! From a friend, one of the committee said that they simply forget to inform me !!! Do I deserve an apology from them here ??? They don't even bother to tell me that !

Aaah, however, these are some photos that I took during the first session with a theme as "fish portrait". Even though 'am not winning anything, but i did enjoy my dive trips in Ambon ! And really hope that all of you will like these. Hey, am just a beginner ! :)