Day 6: No Current, No Fish

I can't believe today is my last day diving here! :'( Time goes by too fast when you're having fun, especially when you're diving. It feels almost like meditating underwater, which just makes time slip by even faster. So now I'm convinced: diving is definitely a form of therapy.

I'm still feeling a bit stuffy, but whatever. Not gonna pass up the last day for anything!

Initially, we went to a dive site called Chicken Bay. One really convenient thing that the guides do is they would jump in the water right when we get to the dive site and determine the current condition before letting us in. If the current is too strong they will suggest a different site. From experience, this is very helpful because most of the time the guides don't even know which way the current is going, let alone whether it is strong or not.

With Chicken Bay, Eddy popped his head up from looking down and said, "no current, no fish."

No current is good. It's always nice not to have to fight it to look at something. But no fish simply means that the scenery is incomplete. I would have been fine with looking around at the corals. But Eddy decided to take us somewhere else instead. So we went to Surgeon's Slope.

There were plenty of fish and corals here. And then I figured out why Eddy wanted fish in the first place. He brought down a black plastic bag with him, and throughout the dive he started feeding the fish fish. That's total cannibalism! Well, I mean, when you think about it fish do eat each other for survival. So it's not as bad as it sounds I guess. But the scent of raw fish meat definitely drew in lots of sharks. Surprisingly they didn't come to join in the feeding when Eddy would pull out a couple pieces. They were just lurking around. Mostly black tip reef sharks. They were probably scared of us.

Our second dive is the must-dive dive of the trip. Everyone who came to Raja Ampat insist on doing The Passage. It's supposed to be one of those if-you-didn't-do-it-you-weren't-really-here kind of thing. So, of course, we couldn't miss it!

The Passage is literally a narrow passage between two islands (around 20 meters wide). Naturally, with the geography being what it is, water flows through the area more rapidly. We were briefed on expecting some currents and to stay away from the center where it will be strongest. To be honest, my sense of direction once underwater is just chicken sh*t. Really! I either follow someone or the wall. If I were left in an open space I would definitely get lost. Good thing I'm not the kind of person that gets scared of that. Or maybe I'm just too confident with myself. :/

Anyway, because of the direction of the current, we started the dive with the cave. It's really this small cave that's not totally enclosed, so it's not dangerous and extreme or anything. Steve called us over to look at the infamous "disco clam" on the wall, which was this clam with bright neon and glow-in-the-dark(?) lips. It was incredible! I guess that's how it attracts food to its mouth, sly bastard! Close by was a huge pufferfish chillaxing in the corner. I think we inconsiderately disturbed his napping time.

Entering the cave! It was actually kind of dark inside.

The little fishies residing in the cave.

On the upper left side of the cave, there's this tiny little hole that leads into a cavern. I initially thought that when the guys were motioning to it, they just wanted us to look through it or something. I didn't know we were going to actually swim through it. I didn't even know there was a cavern! Oh, I'm such a good listener. I'm pretty sure they covered it in the briefing somewhere. So you can imagine my hesitation when one of the guides went in first while the other motioned for me to follow.

It was just so small! Like barely enough for a person and a tank on their back. I was worried my tank or one of the hoses will get snagged. Seriously, it's like that little hole Ariel peeped out of while singing about wanting to walk on land from her secret cave of "gadgets and gizmos" in "The Little Mermaid." I wanna be where the people are... not.

We made it through with a little help from the guides. I saw them surfacing (the dive wasn't deep in the first place), and I thought that something was wrong. You don't usually surface unless something happened. I was kind of confused, but I finally surfaced after a bit. Turns out they just wanted to show us the secret cavern. There was no exit so I quickly came to realize that it can't be accessed other than from underwater.  It was actually a very beautiful little hideaway.

Picture time!
(Me, Eddy, my mom, Imail)

The hidden cavern with its vegetation.
Like a little place of serenity.

After a while we descended back down, exited through a different (and bigger) opening, and proceeded further into the passage. I was extremely fascinated by the harmony between the world out of water and the submerged one. Looking along the walls, there was an abundance of corals. Looking up, I was surrounded and protected by a forest of mangroves. That dynamic gave a totally different experience, almost like you're floating in between the possible and impossible.

We came up to this point where the guides signaled to be buddy-buddy with us. Ismail was with my mom and Eddy was with me. I saw Ismail took hold of my mom's hand, and then Eddy took mine. I was thinking, okay, this is not necessarily a good sign. Just moments later we were fighting through this blasting current across the floor of the passage. Thankfully my mask didn't start leaking like last time when I was in the Maldives. I swear, if my hand were to have slipped or Eddy were to let go, I would have flown away in an instant.

It's interesting how you're in these situations where it's prime time to panic, but you know you can't because you'll use up too much air, so you just pretend to be calm. And it works! I mean, you're basically forcing yourself to be calm and just literally go with the flow. Except this time we were going against the flow. Eddy was holding on to the rocky bottom and propelling us forward. I held on like there's no tomorrow!

The cool part of this was when we would fly past blocks of coral or just some kind of wall in general. Once we're behind the block/wall, there would be little to no current. But once we past it the blasting water would hit us again. A pretty interesting dynamic to the dive. To be honest, I didn't look around much because I was so focused on taking long, deep breaths, hahaha!

Ismail and my mom.

Eddy and I.

We finally came to a calmer part where I could finally look around without losing my cool. Huge mangrove roots stood strong, ascending skyward. We stopped to look at the gobies' lair. Most of the ones here are yellow, though there were also some striped brown and white ones. It was really cute how all of the holes would have a shrimp in it constantly bringing out sand from the den. They supposedly live symbiotically. It's really a wonder how they find each other in the first place. I mean, every goby has his own shrimp.

The yellow gobies with their shrimp.
Aren't they cute? Looks like they have freckles!

Two weird looking nudibranches, laying eggs, I think.

My third and last dive here in Raja Ampat was at Otdima. My mom had already done this site on the day that I was sick. She said it was so beautiful she wanted me to see it. I was having a slight headache while I was under, possibly because I was overexerting myself combined with a little dehydration. But that didn't stop me from seeing all the beauty around me! The colors and reef at Otdima was just impossibly vibrant. So full of life.

We found a couple more pygmy seahorses (I'm seriously considering buying a magnifying glass for those little dudes), more nudibranches, and a school of baby barracudas. And no, I don't think the barracudas look any less intimidating when they're smaller. Apparently, this site is also famous for its crowd of sweet lips in this one particular spot. Every photographer who comes here would take pictures of the fish here. Here's a couple snapshots to give you a better picture: (Ha! That's like a little pun!)

Sweet Lips!

Look at them all huddled together!

Look at how rich the corals around here are!
Every surface is covered with life! It was beautiful!

At the end of the dive I got another surprise from mother nature. As we were ascending, we came across this huge cuttlefish. He started out whitish, and slowly turns darker before swimming away from us in what looked like an angry manner.

You can see the color progression as you scroll down...

A little browner.

And a little darker.

And totally brown and going away!

Do you see the richness of the corals in the background of this picture? It's just amazing isn't it? I was suddenly appreciative of the efforts Sorido Bay is making in order to protect the waters in this area. And you can totally see that it's working!