Menangen Island

    Having spent the first week in Amed, under the shadow of Mt Agung, we have moved our expedition to the very northwest corner of the island of Bali.  Here in Permuteran we are fifteen miles

Nickolai and Peter.  The Novice and the Wizard

away from the most important island in Indoniesia.  Java is home to several large cities,one of which, Jakarta, you have actually heard of.   Once upon a time, Jakarta was known as Batavia and was the first major European outpost in this part of the world.

   Yesterday, we went on a guided dive trip with Sea Rovers, one of the innumerable dive companies in Pemuteran.  There  were two guides, Davy and Aleef.  And Batu, an Indonesian of few words, who piloted the boat.  Aleef, a young sleepy sort of Muslim, was to guide the three snorkelers and Davy a lithe brown man with a quick smile and charming sense of humor, was guiding our friend Peter on his dives.

   Our third snorkeler, after the redoubtable SKG and your humble correspondent, was Nikolai.  Nickolai is from Denmark and had only donned a snorkel mask once before.  That was, in all of the unlikely places, Zanzibar.  What do I know about the island of Zanzibar?  Long ago the Big Z made its wealth as a holding facility for the black African slave trade.  More recently, as I recall, my boys and I enjoyed  a children's story, Hugo the Hippo, about an eponymous hippopotamus who made his way to the mainland after fighting off sharks and an evil Zanzibar sultan, who was probably involved in the slave trade when not plaguing hippos.

   Five years ago Nickolai had been stationed in Uganda as part of the Danish consulate.  He was involved in something like our Peace corps, coordinating a program aimed teaching the Ugandans how to make Havarti cheese.   While there, he took a tourist trip to the Big Z where he went snorkeling exactly once.  He must have enjoyed it, because here he was, once again at the ends of the earth, on his second snorkeling expedition.  On the other hand, he must not have enjoyed it too much because there was that five year hiatus between his fist snorkeling experience and the next.

the Inscrutable Razorfish, Bali 2017

   Nikolai is now married and the loving couple has a baby who is also on the trip to Bali.  We know this, as he allowed that Sea Rovers would not permit an infant under three on the boat trip to Menangen
Island.  To which we might add, "Thank expletive deleted God!"

    After grouping up at the office, we were transported in the back of a pick up truck to the small pier and soon found ourselves bouncing over the waves in a covered twenty footer powered  by a pair of 100 horse Evinrudes. It was good that we had all that power because Menangen Island is about eight miles away from the Sea Rovers dock.

   Soon enough we were secured to a mooring buoy and the divers, then the snorkelers, were disembarked into the warm Java Sea.  You will note that not only is Pemuteran on the west end of the island, but also on the north side, hence in a different body of water than Amed, accruing in the process a slightly different cohort of fishes.

The handsome Red Breasted Razorfish, Menangen Island 2017

    The spot we snorkeled first is known as Eel Garden.  It was raised coral flat a half mile from shore.  We had been prepared for coral death by the nice lady who booked the trip and here it was almost complete.  As in Amed, there were some soft corals, but the hard corals were all white and deteriorating.  Aleef had explained that there had been two really hot years for ocean temperatures in a row, 2015 and 2016.  As many of you know, it took only one year, 2015, in Hawaii to wipe out much of our coral.

   Unlike on shore near our resort, however, the water was crystal clear.  For the most part it was the usual suspects, keeping in mind that the usual suspects in Bali are pretty good.  The clear water enabled me to take much better pictures than those I had nabbed back by our resort. For the third time on this trip, but  the first in truly clear water, we encountered a family of shrimpfish, which I am now informed are known here as

The Skunk anemonefish pokes out his nose to say hello.

razorfish.  These strange elongated and compressed fish travel in packs, all the time swimming face down.   The school proved eminently approachable.  Sandra and I enjoyed them immensely.

    On this bleached reef,  Aleef found us a blenny sticking his head from a worm hole.  In this instance the bleaching actually makes the object of the picture more visible.    

    In a depression of powdery coral rubble, I found a leaf scorpionfish about three feet down.  Last time we were in Bali, in 2014, Sandra and I saw our first leaf scorpionfish.  Since then, we have seen several in Hawaii, but never in such an exposed position and at such a reasonable depth.  The fact that my picture is not perfect can only be chalked up to operator error.

Blenny in  a Tube

   Just before we were to board the boat Sandra found an anemone serving as home to a family of skunk anemonefish, the third of this group for the trip.  So important was this find, that Peter plunged back into the sea and swam up current so I could point out this relatively unusual anemonefish.


    While we were on this part of the snorkeling trip, our guide took up a chore that was to occupy about a quarter of his time...helping Nikolai with his mask fit.  There was a spare mask on board and Aleef retrieved that one, seemingly a marginal improvement.  At one point he even traded masks with the hapless Dane.  This is not really meant as a criticism.  It was truly Nick's second time ever donning a snorkel mask in anger and the best of us have had trouble accommodating to a new, ill fitting mask.

yellowspotted Pipefish, Menangen Island,  Bali 2017

    In a way, I am reminded of Sandra's beginning as a birdwatcher.  Before she had much of a chance to learn the sport, she was hauled to the hot spots in southern Arizona.  On a bench in the backyard of some enthusiasts, somewhere near Patagonia, Az., she had to pretend that she could identify a pygmy nuthatch and  a Mexican chickadee, not to mention a fistful of hummingbirds with names like Outrageous Velvet Throat.

   At some juncture, as we slide down the razor blade of life, we all have to be the neophyte and this was Nick's turn.  Too bad being a Tyro snorkeler includes the risk of drowning.  What was really too bad was that the baby Dane wasn't bawling his brains out to the amusement of the taciturn Batu.  Not!

   Back on the boat, we went about a mile to an outpost of the national park, replete with shelters for shade and restrooms.  After a sumptuous lunch, fried noodles with spicy chicken, an egg and some

The Sasquatch Hermit,  Dardanus pesmagnum,  Menangen Island 2017

fruit, we were permitted to snorkel the adjacent reef flat.   Here I caught this wonderful picture of the black tailed humbug dascyllus.  Off the pier, there was a family of golden spadefish.  In general, one sees the large adults swimming out in the sea and the adolescents, who look like something out of Star Wars, hovering around the pier.

    Our second dive site, Mangroves, was just down the coast.  Here the shore was lined with (no surprise) mangroves.  I remarked that I had never snorkeled among mangroves and that I was looking forward to seeing the unique group of fishes that are reputed to live within their roots.  Archer fish, as an example.  Peter initiated a discussion of the exceedingly poisonous snakes that live in the mangroves

Sandra's Hermit Crab, Ca. sandra , Menangen Island 2017

of Indonesia and I somehow turned the topic to saltwater crocodiles, a menace to snorkelers in northern Australia and Palau.  Davy told us the previous year someone had released such a crocodile nearby.  The beast had been exterminated, so we were in no danger on that front, at least.


     Here there was a steep wall with a flat on top, not unlike Paul Allen's Reef, only more so.  As there was virtually no wave action, this reef flat was very accessible. The tool of the year for dive guides is a colorful aluminum stick about a foot in length.  Aleef used his handsome purple wand to prod the reef gently and to point out the delights he thus discovered.  Early on he pointed out a yellowspotted pipefish.  At one juncture, he alerted us to a magnificent hermit crab.  This guy was bigger than the largest blood crab I have encountered back in the vicinity of KOA.  And was, as you can plainly see, covered with

Black Trumpet-shaped Sponges Grow from the Wall.

a lush carpet of hairs.  He was a veritable Sasquatch among hermit crabs.

    At another spot on the reef flat, Sandra found a shell out of place that (after some careful turning and patient watching) emerged the probable out of which  (after some Calcinus hermit crab you see here.

    There were some magnificent sea fans and sponges attached to the wall, which dropped a precipitous thirty feet. There was also some very good fish swimming off the edge.  Perhaps the best fish we saw, relative to the trip was a large, colorful blenny reminiscent of the Ewa blenny seen

The Ewa Blenny Equivalent,  the Blue Stripe Blenny  Bali 2017

mostly by divers in Hawaii.  Just this year Peter turned us on to an Ewa blenny near Mahukona, erasing a long standing identification error of mine.  So this equivalent had special meaning for yours truly.

    I will leave you with a picture of a small fish that occurred near the end of our snorkel.  As you can see, he has a red head that transitions to a blue body and tail.  My best guess is that he is a wrasse, but Gerald Allenet al. in Reef Fish ...Tropical Pacific
 attempts to cover all the reef fish from Thailand to Tahiti.  Suffice it to say, this is a monumental task...there are gazillions of fish and sometimes they change colors from location to location. Certainly we are so lucky to have the opportunity to enjoy them here in Bali.

Black Tailed Humbug Dascyllus

What is for sure is that this red and blue beauty is not in the book.  This is not unique...there are several beautiful fish we have seen that do not make what we had hoped would be a comprehensive field guide.

   (I am unable to upload the picture of the pretty red fish at this time.  Stay tuned.  We need your help with identification!)

    What we know for sure is that we are so very lucky to be here in Bali with the charming people and our good friends enjoying the fishes.

jeff