I finally made it to the happiest place on Earth. Absolutely not Disney Land, although living in West Sumatra sometimes can feel like you are in Disney because everywhere you can see t-shirts, underwear, sneakers, posters, and even buses of Mickey and Minnie Mouse. I mean the place where you can test your limits, see amazing creatures, take artistic photographs of breathtaking sights, and witness the realities of the globe all at once! Under the Sea .
On Saturday I did two dives with the ONLY dive center in Padang. There was a lot of management screw ups but I guess I can't be too picky here and at the end of the day I still was able to dive. There's an island off of Padang (about a 30 minute boat drive) called Gosong Pieh. Supposedly there are many hammerhead sharks here but I didn't see any. The second dive though I did see a black tip reef shark for the first time. I have to remember to tell dive guides NOT to get my hopes up about what we'll see. This is always happens to me. They say, "i always see hammerheads when I go there. You'll love it!" and then, "nada". That did happen again unfortunately.
Here are the dive details and more importantly please look at my beautiful photos. I think I will try to enter the triggerfish one into a photo competition (I need a good name for it though). "Trigger Happy" has probably been used before I'd imagine.
First Dive: 35 meters, 5 minute rest/safety stop, bottom time was 36 minutes. This was a reef wall with a strong current at the top. I suckd a lot of air trying to get to the wall. My dive buddy (the assistant instructor for the shop) had a sinus infection and couldn't make it below 10 meters. I went on my own to the bottom of the wall while he watched me from the top of the reef. Saw a stingray, TONS of triggerfish, trevalle, clownfish, clown triggerfish (my favorite kind of trigger), and a green eel.
Second Dive: 20 meters, 3 minute safety stop, bottom time was 54 minutes. This reef is on the other side of Pulau Pieh (Pieh Island) and the dive instructor personally calls it the Great Wall. I took amazing shots here because the contrasting colors were perfect. Had some fun with another stingray, saw lots of lionfish (yes the poisonous kind), big eye, sweet lips, no nudibranchs (even though they were predicted), and a really cool crown of thorns seastar. Again lots of triggerfish (in March when I dove the Caribbean there was an insane amount of parrotfish and here in Indo there are tons of triggerfish).
My friend Ole accompanied me on the boat even though she can't swim or dive. It was her first time ever on a boat! It never ceases to amaze me how the citizens of West Sumatra, who are mostly fishing families, cannot swim, do not go out on boats, and have no real desire to see the amazing coral reef around their home.
For lunch we ate on the boat, next to the island watching the waves (kind of in a bowl shape). Very relaxing. But, First time ever that I went diving, took pretty photos of the fish, and then IMMEDIATELY came up and ate a reef fish. I'm going to vegetarian hell!
Usually diving for me is like an escape from all my problems and a way to just simply be. This time, though, an unfortunate realiy intruded on my serenity (but good for research I guess). A HUGE section of the Great Wall was blown up from previous dynamite fishing. That's an illegal form of fishing where they use dynamite to blow up the reef and then basically just collect the dead fish as they float to the top and dive down to collect pretty coral to sell as souveniers. In areas like the Mentawai they also use the coral for building roads. I was told diving off of Padang is better than the Mentawai (which was relieving since I really want to dive there too but no time to go there) although 70% of the reefs of West Sumatra are damaged as a whole. I also included the photos of the dead reef here too. Sorry to depress you but it is the world we live in.
On the boat ride back I asked the dive instructor if we could stop by a fishing boat(see photo). They are really cool because they pilot out in the afternoon, find a spot, stay there and wait until night fall. Then they put the nets out on one side of the boat on the wings and put the lights on only on that side of the boat. Then they wait for the fish to come. Once the net is full they just pull it up using a few men and haul the nets on the boat. I would like to spend a day with the fishermen but I have a feeling spending the night with a western woman isn't something their culture allows. As we pulled up to the boat I immediately took pictures which wasn't very nice of me since one of the men was naked and I accidentally took his photo. They started whistling because I took photos first and waved second. Oops. I heard yesterday there's a program to help the kids of these kind of fishermen study since they work all night and arrive back to their houses to sleep and go back out again. Could be kind of cool to be an english teacher for those kids if anyone is interested in helping out the poor fishermen children.
Have to get back to work. Last week here. Maybe I will go diving again on Friday if I can fly to Jakarta on Saturday instead.
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