In June last year I finally took a trip to one of my dream dive locations; Lembeh, Indonesia.
Lembeh is a small island off the northern tip of Suluwesi. There is a narrow straight of water between the island and mainland. This creates a very unique environment for marine life, and has become world renowned for muck diving.
As muck diving is primarily looking for very small creatures, I knew before the trip that I would need to upgrade my equipment and buy a super macro wet lens. I went with the Nauticam SM-C1. This had great reviews and would easily fit on the front of my housing.
There are many dive companies on or near to Lembeh, but the one which stood out to me was Two Fish Dive Resort. They picked us up from the airport and transferred us directly to their private boat, which took us across the strait to their private resort, which is situated in their own private bay. It really did feel like paradise.
The basic accommodation was small and with shared bathroom facilities, but there was a large bench area just outside the room, perfect for setting up camera equipment or uploading photos on a laptop. The small size of the room didn’t matter as we only ended up sleeping in it.
The diving was exactly what I expected, we saw hundreds of nudibranchs, crabs, shrimp, juvenile fish, squid, octopuses, cuttlefish, eels, seahorses, mandarin fish, frogfish, scorpionfish, lembeh sea dragon, and an electric clam. Every single dive was just one creature after another. On some of the dives, in particular the night dive, our guide was literally waiting for me to finish photographing one subject so he could show me the next thing he had found. It was an amazing, thrilling experience overall. Out of all of the creatures we found my favorite had to be the coconut octopus. I think I must have spent at least half an hour just watching, waiting and photographing this little creature. The way that it slowly came out of its hole, gathered its shell and walked off across the sand was incredible. He had such character and was completely aware of my presence, watching me just as much as I was watching him.
Overall, I loved the whole experience in Lembeh and did not want to leave at the end of the stay. It is definitely a place I would like to return to in the future, and would highly recommend any divers to go there.
Want to learn how to take amazing underwater photos? My photography courses can help you can make the most of your dives. If you enjoyed this please also check out what did we see at the SS Yongala? and Diving in Shark bay.
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