Makassar Pictures!

Hello everyone. For today's topic, I'd like to share some pictures from the last Makassar, Sulawessi trip. All the coral pictures are from this trip but the red Bali brains and the cynarina donuts.

So we took this bicycle taxi to eat at a local fish restaurant. It was just me and my wife. We couldn't figure out how much to pay for the fare and all I had was a 20,000 rupiah (a little over $2), so I gave it to the tired bicyclist. He was very happy. The word must have spread that I was a good tipper because the next time we came out from the hotel, we were greeted by a whole bunch of these guys. They were all smiling and pointing to their bicycle rickshaws! I found out that normal fare would have been less than half of what I gave.

We got to the restaurant and they offered us this titan trigger!

They also had an assortment of groupers and snappers.

We ended up choosing a grouper to get steamed. It was ok, nothing like a fresh live one. We also ordered some grilled shrimp. Along with rice and vegetables, it was a pretty good meal.

Here we are at another restaurant. This one specializes in the free range chicken. These are very small birds but taste like candy!

So here is what I do. Walk into the coral ponds and carefully look for nice corals. The floating basket comes in handy. It is kind of like picking fruit, except that the fruit is on the ground. Hours of doing this and my back feels like it is on fire!

Here I am carefully looking for damage on some rose anemones.

Sometimes, there is no place for me to walk. I have to position myself in all sorts of ways to pick the nicer corals!

So Makassar is known for their fabulous Ricordia yumas. Just gorgeous, blue and red with a green rim!

Here is an assortment of some choice corals that I just finishing picking out.

Red yumas are one of my favorites! Check out the size below - wow!

This thing is nearly 4 inches wide, without being fully opened! When it is really happy, it can probably reach 7 inches!

Beautiful symphyllia brain. It even has blue-purple mouths! This coral will go on sale soon in the US from an online company.

Stunning red goniopora! Once is a while I'll run into a super rare one with yellow centers.

Super Acanthastrea echinatas are not so hard to find from Makassar!

Very nice deepwater lobophyllia! These have orange and green. They color up nicely under halides!

Another beautiful Acan echinata. This color morph is referred to as "orange crush" in the US.

The best Acanthastrea lordhowensis comes from this region of Indonesia!

Another beautiful Acan lord. This extra large colony is brick red in color!

Encrusting montiporas are not that common in Makassar. But they do come in sometimes. I passed this one up because it was damaged.

Stunning red Bali brain! This trachyphyllia is known as Wellsophyllia here in Indonesia. There is a green morph, and those are called Jakarta brain.

Another beautiful Bali brain!

Before common, now very hard to find. I was lucky to get these pieces in!

Gorgeous cynarina donuts. This one is super metallic and super large!

Another superb cynarina donut. This metallic orange specimen can open over a foot long! The skeleton base is about 5-6 inches! Both of the two large pieces came in really bangged up from the islands. They are recovering now and will be ready for shipout soon.

That is it guys. I'm going to be busy for the next few days so I will post when I'm back in Bali. By the way, I went and visited the Jakarta bird market yesterday - way cool!. I'll have pictures from that trip along with more corals in the upcoming posts.

cheers,
Eddie