I took this shot from the upper level of the aquarium. The clowntrigger looks pretty cool!
Another shot from the upper level. I saw what appeared to be a school of fish in the enclosure to the right of the boat.
I walked down checked out the action. A school of giant batfish!
Another view of the aquarium as we were heading out.
While our crazy tour guide was babbling on, I decided to check out what was happening in the back of the boat.
The crew were preparing lunch.
There was a group of guys sitting on the floor splitting open sea urchins!
I didn't know you can eat these long spiny things!
Actually they were taking out the eggs, just like those expensive silly things at Japanese restaurants!
I've had fresh sea urchin eggs from freshly cracked open ones back in the Tonga days. The divers loved these and would bring on board huge specimens (short spined ones). We would scrape off the eggs from the inner sides of the urchin with boiled casava roots! My divers loved it but it was hard to swallow for me. Perhaps if I had some of that hot green stuff or soy sauce, it would have tasted better. But these bits of eggs from the long spined guys here would be made into "urchin egg congee"!
A basket of sea food for the stir fry!
Here is Anne and her brother Kye. Kye is the youngest of the siblings. Check out the shirt he is wearing, one of my old Bali ones that got too small for me.
Our next stop would be a reef area where a glass bottom boat was waiting for us. As we were closing in on the reef, I noticed a familiar structure on the water.
Wow, looks just like the floating platforms in Northern Bali! Remember those days when I used to walk on the small wooden walkways picking out aquacultures without trying not to fall in the water?
For sure any one of these floating platforms can easily be converted to an aquaculture station. The water conditions looked similar to Northern Bali too. But these floating platforms here were used to hold live fish and other seafood creatures!
So we anchored in a deep none reef area. While some of the tourists went swimming, we went on this glass bottom boat to check out the reefs! This wasn't part of the tour and it cost an extra $3 per person.
So here is what it looks like. The idea is great but someone needs to keep the viewing glass clean! It looked like a reef tank that wasn't cleaned in a week!
Some German friends were nice enough to take our group picture.
As we were heading out, this little "house boat" cruised by. Reminded me of my Tonga days. The local boats were similar to this design. I used to lay down on top of the house when I got sea sick!
We chugged along the shore and got into some shallow water. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed that this part of the reef was not good looking at all. I've been in this bay before and saw some really nice corals and reef structure but not in this spot. I couldn't really see under the glass bottom so I took some pictures from the side.
A huge patch of soft corals. These were growing literally within yards from the shore.
An acropora and some fungias.
Some porites, acroporas, and look to be echinoporas or turbinarias in the center.
You can see where the shore drops off in this picture.
Assorted soft corals.
As were heading back to our main boat, this guy came cruising along. For about a dollar, you can hop on this glass bottom boat instead!Conclusion
Ok guys that is it for today. I have returned to Jakarta from coral hunting and have some exciting pictures to share after my "Vietnam Adventures" series.
Cheers,
Eddie
1 comment:
Vietnam travel part is clear in these photos is an important part of that country!
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