Bits and Pieces of Life…

… like this little seahorse to a slightly bigger frogfish.

Location: Lembeh Strait, North Sulawesi
Date/Time: 1st Sept 2009, 15:30

This orange brownish juvenile frogfish, measuring less than 5cm in length, has been eyeballing the pity little seahorse for quite some time. It probably ponders whether to go for something prettier for a quick snack – it is teatime now anyway – or just take the black seahorse for a quick chow since it is easy – the seahorse didn’t intend to move out from the frogfish’s stare at all. My dive buddy Bill and myself swam around these 2 little creatures for a while but nothing happened. They kept staring at each other, like stone statues, not moving a muscle, and only few centimeters apart.

Then, in the blink of an eye, the frogfish opens its huge mouth and had the whole of the seahorse’s head and some of its body swallowed. It is kinda bizarre to witness such a killing, though I’d prefer real horse meat over seahorse’s meat anyday.

For the next 3 minutes or so, the below pose maintained:

Frogfish tries to swallow a seahorse

But then, probably feeling remorse to kill a seahorse, or maybe the seahorse is just too hard to swallow, the frogfish releases it out from his mouth, and slowly retreated. The seahorse is alive – for now.

erm.. the frogfish didn't really like the horse meat...

Sipadan Island - Tiny but Famed

It’s been a while – 6 months to be exact – since I came back from my Sipadan trip, but it is just like yesterday, that I can still remember details of the trip. I had my best dives, not saying a lot as I have just over 50 in total, but the memories of this trip will not go away for a very long time. Because the trip is very special to me.

So, I am obligated to write down some notes about this trip, on one hand to record down my memories, but on the other hand promote our own little Malaysian islands – Sipadan, Mabul and Kapalai – to the rest of the travelers and divers. Not that these famed islands still need any more promotion, though.

Some trip information for my 5D4N Sipadan trip last August (8/82008 ~ 12/8/2008):

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Great Barracuda, length of 1.5m or so

Date: 11th August, 2008; ~1pm

Location: one of Kapalai’s dive sites

Equipment: Canon Powershot A620 in Canon WP-DC90 waterproof housing, Inon Z240 single strobe

It was almost 50 minutes into our 2nd dive of the day, at Kapalai (near Sipadan, Sabah, Malaysia). 6 of us together with our dive master ascended to ~7m, getting ready to do the safety stop and call it an end to another great dive. Thus far, the dive is excellent – among other sightings, I saw my first ribbon eels – 2 adults in blue and yellow colors, and one pitch black juvenile. I spent quite some time with one of the adult ribbon eels, trying to get a good shot of it but not really successful. My buddy Bill was not helping at all in that regard, but that is another story.

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Dive Trip Photos [click each to see more]

Sipadan Water Village @ Mabul Sipadan 2008: Above Water	School of barracuda Sipandan 2008: UnderWater
Tioman Sunset Tioman 2007: Above Water	Curious Clownfish Tioman 2007: Under Water
Life's a Beach Perhentian Besar 2007	Sunset @ Koh Lipe Koh Lipe, Thailand, Dec 2007
Hawksbill dives Pulau Tenggol, Underwater, Sept2007	Leave Nothing But Foot Print Pulau Tenggol, Above Water, Sept2007
Redang Long Beach Redang 2007: Coming Soon!

Travel Photos

Emerald Temple, Bangkok Bangkok & Pattaya, Dec2008	Local girl @ Sapa, Northern Vietnam Sapa, Northern Vietnam, May2007 – Coming Soon!
Mount Bromo, Java, Indonesia Central Java, Indonesia July2007 Coming Soon!	Dusk at Sekinchang (Selangor, Malaysia) Sekinchang, Selangor
Offering Bali, April 2009	Sunset @ Boracay Boracay, May 2009

Misc

The Smiling Clown Hot Air Balloon Fiesta, Putrajaya, March 2009

Cooling Off Formula 1 @ Sepang, Apr 2007