More from Lembeh Straits

Gladys with Larry Smith Trained DMs

Batfish

Blue Ringed Octopus

Mototi Octopus

Gladys and Lisa

Gladys and Tracy

Today I did my 40th dive in Indonesia.  The last 19 have been here at  Lembeh Straits. This morning I went with Danny, the owner, as he has great respect of Larry Smith who was responsible for establishing Muck diving in this area.   The dive masters that Larry trained here all call me “Larry’s Sea Mom!! After the dive this morning  I  was asked to have my picture taken with the dive masters Larry certified and all the children and grand children that have been trained by those dive masters

 This was the second day in a row that we saw the blue ring octopus (which happens to be the most toxic creature in the entire world, if it stings you,  you have 8 seconds before you are dead!!!   We also saw the mototi octopus, also the colorful frog fish and a total of 6 white-eyed moray eels. We also saw a lobster but it was about a ¼   the size of the ones we have at Little Cayman.  The amazing bat fish that have  fins about  a foot long each (twice as long as their body ) are everywhere, but today  we saw a baby that was about a inch in .size.  The amazing small cardinal fish run in schools and are a great contrast to the anemones that they always inhabit.  The clown fish that are usually on the leather soft coral are very  protective of their territory.  One actually swam up to me and became rather aggressive. Yesterday while I was checking out some beautiful fire urchins I felt a nip on my sleeve ,only to realize I was being attacked by a flamboyant 
Giant mantis shrimp.  I was too close to his hiding hole!!!
This has been one of the most amazing trips with critters that are mostly on a sloping black sand sea floor that is covered with all sort of trash, very little coral where they actually are located.  The coral that does exist here does not contain many of the critters we saw.

As always, sweet Lisa acted as my dresser and undresser!!! It has been great to have Tracy as my dive buddy on all of my dives except this morning!!