Our First Day in Bali

    For the last couple months, Sandra and I have been preparing for a return to Bali...studying fish lists and

China Airlines.  Wow!

field guides, arranging our lodgings on beaches so good for snorkeling that you would hardly believe it.  Two days ago we ensconced our friends from Calgary in our home, where they will live happily for the next three weeks.  Yesterday we took the long flight from Kona through Honolulu, then to Taipei and on to Bali.

    China Airlines was a delight.  Our seats from HNL to TPE were small and cramped, but that is the way of the present, regardless of the airline if you fly coach.  The Airbus was new and the staff was like a breath of  fresh air.  Thin young attendants the like of which you would have to be as old as I am to recall in one of our domestic airships.  Friendly and eager to please, they even gave me a Saporro to sip with my early morning supper of rice and beef.

    I was a bit worried about the airport in Taipei.  Would there be sufficient English to guide me my

Emperor Angelfish  Lipah Bay,Bali 2014

 departure gate?  This concern could not have been more misdirected. Everyone spoke a bit of English.  There were fancy stores selling Coach and Swarovski.  And even a fine liquor emporium where they gave me a taste or two of the signature potable of Taiwan. (Kaoliang) which tasted a bit like vodka with a hint of brandy.  

    We had been warned by the neighbor lady that Bali was crowded.  Even so, we were astonished by the mob in the arrivals hall, perhaps 2000 souls.  It took us almost tow hours to clear customs.  Money exchange was quick.  In the Bali airport money changers are limited to 2.5 % on the transaction and there are ATMs, so it does not make any sense to get Indonesian money at home at great expense.

      There was good news and bad in the Java Sea.  It has been five years since we have been here and the .
amount of coral death was striking.   One of our hosts at Bayu Cottages in Lipah is Uneing.  she is a dive instructor.  Between swims, I had a chance to talk to her about this.   She thinks that after a several year peiod of high temperatures, the area around Lipah is finally catching a break.  Indeed, there was some evidence of new corals growing.  Overall, though, it is a ghostly gray shadow of what we enjoyed just five years ago

Crescent (Lunar) Wrasse, Lipah Bay Bali 2014

    The good news was that there were still lots of fish.  Like Hawaii, despite dwindling corals, there are still a lot of species of fishes here.  The Lunar Wrasse and the Emperor Angelfish were two of our favorites.  Somehow I managed to get a pretty good picture of of the male Scalefin  Anthias.  Anthias are colorful little fish that are restricted to such depth in Hawaii thaat only dovers get to enjoy them.  In Bali several species occur in large numbers at snorkeling depth.

     We were able to renew our love affair with crinoids.  These  feathery animals are echinoderms, relatives of sea stars and urchins.  If there was a single group of animals that I could introduce to Hawaii, crinoids would be it.  Isn't this golden beauty pictured here a freast for the eyes?


     Sandra did n't answer the bell for the four o'clock swim.  There was some small surf, but the number of fish was at least as good as our noon time experience.  I was able to end the day with a great look at the immature of the black snapper.  Sandra

Scalefin Anthias male, Bali 2014

and I call this fish in her classic black and white polkadot gown, the Dancing Queen.  And dance she does.  wiggling back and forth, perhaps imitating a nudibranch.  If you listen carefully, you can hear Freddie Mercury singing...even underwater.