Imagine being 25 feet below sea level and floating a foot above the sandy ocean bottom … you’ve got your poker (18” aluminum stick) planted in the sand a foot away from the corral to steady yourself in the surge. You’re waiting patiently and on HIGH alert for up to an hour for an amazing show to begin… mating of the mandarin fish. As we are trying our best to be perfectly still, an octopus slides right under my leg and begs for attention. Then a huge puffer fish checks us out one at a time …swimming right up to our mask and daring us to respond… ultimately knowing he is distracting us. We all try our best to stay diligent and focus on the coral. At the exact moment the sun sets and the last ray disappears, the performance begins. It’s quick, but the twirling upward as these colorful beautiful fish connect and mate is a magnificent sight. I decided not to try and capture this spectacular event with my camera this time, but instead to focus on every small detail with my mind to form the perfect memory. I’ve seen this show twice before and in my eagerness to record it, I’ve missed the beauty Mother Nature created. Feel free to go to utube (Mating of Mandarin Fish… by ResoKoa, a dive guide at the resort) and watch for yourselves… but nothing compares to laying on the bottom of the ocean floor in the ALMOST dark water and admiring the ritual in person.

On one of our last dives of the trip, we were fortunate to see a large peacock flounder. This is a rare find on a day dive because they are nocturnal. Peacock flounders are masters of camouflage. Whenever possible, rather than swim, they crawl on their fins along the bottom while constantly changing colors and patterns as often as every 8 seconds. This helps them avoid detection by both prey and predators. Another cool event we experienced was when we were hanging out over a coral garden… fixing to head to the boat…a large group of shrimp fish surrounded us. They are almost clear in body with a dark strip down the center of their body and they hang out upside down. Weird for a fish.

A note to my dive buddies… if humidity or mobility is a challenge for you, avoid Lembeh Resort. Since the jungle surrounds the buildings, and the Common areas are without A/C, the humidity can be cut with a knife. The rooms can be turned down to freezers, but the minute you step outside, it hits you hard. And be prepared to climb many, many stairs to reach your villa and move around the resort.

It was sad to bid our friends farewell at Lembeh, but today it was time to move on to our next exploration site and home for the next week… Siladen
(c-lah’-den) Resort in the the Bunaken National Marine Park.