Minahasa Lagoon

Erik van Dommelen and his wife Adriana just left us after their second trip to Minahasa Lagoon. In 2010 they came for the first time with their daughter and they had a perfect time staying and diving with us. They had such a nice time that they decided to come back this year. Without their daughter this time but they brought their friends Kees and Anke with them. They all enjoyed it very much. Erik and Kees went diving every day and they both absorbed a lot of dives. Erik is a very enthusiastic photographer and below here you find a few of his shots he took this time. They were overwhelmed by all the critters they saw. Some of their highlights were the Blue Ring and Mimic Octopus, Weedy Scorpion fish, several kinds of Frog fishes, Harlequin Shrimp and much more. Adriana and Anke enjoyed themselves while relaxing in our spa and exploring the land with several of our guided land tours. Sadly enough, after 15 days, it was time to say goodbye. But chances are big that they will be back again next year.
Thank you Erik for sharing these pictures with us.

Minahasa Lagoon will be present at the upcoming European dive shows :

BOOT Show – Duesseldorf, Germany
From January 21st until January 29th. You can find us in Hall 3, booth A20 at the Indonesien Pavillion.

FESPO Ferienmesse – Zurich, Switzerland
From January 26th until January 29th. You can find us in Hall 6 in the Booth of Schoener Tauchen Switzerland.

DUIKVAKER  - Expo Houten, The Netherlands
From February 4th until February 5th. You can find us in Hall 2 at Booth 2312.

We are looking forward to meet you there. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to send us an email : resort@minahasalagoon.com

A lot of things can happen in a month. About a month ago we discovered for the first time that the Rhinopias were back in the area, a pair of beautiful reddish/brownish Weedy Scorpionfish showed up in Bethlehem. All of our guests are amazed by these wonderful creatures and most of them have never seen one before.

Two weeks ago I had a discussion with a guest about their colour. He told me that they were yellow/greenish and I told him they were reddish/brownish. We could not settle on it. We had a look at the pictures he took and they still were reddish/brownish but paler as before. He and his wife were very surprised, because while diving they could have sworn they were yellow/greenish. A couple days later one of our dive guides came to me and told me they found a new Rhinopias, one that wasn’t there before and it was yellow/greenish. Now I was really curious and the next day I went looking for them myself and during that dive I was convinced from 2 things. They were the same fish as we had 2 weeks before and their colour was changed.

Have a look at the different pictures below here, all the same fish but 2 taken about a month ago and 2 taken 2 days ago. The ones on the left are taken 2 days ago and the ones on the right about a month ago. See the difference? It’s amazing that these fish can adapt that fast to their surroundings. I have been trying to gather some more information about this phenomena but there is not much known about the Rhinopias changing their colour.

Thank you very much Markus Roth from www.maro-visions.de and Gary Sun for sharing these pictures with us.

The last few days the diving has been very good. The temperature of the water is colder and that seems to attract more unusual critters. The most special one, that we haven’t seen for a long time is the Weedy Scorpionfish (Rhinopias Frondosa). A beautiful couple has shown up and hopefully will stay for a while. This very rare fish is the holy grail for underwater photographers and is on top of the wishlist of many divers. Have a look at the pictures and see how beautiful but strange looking these fish are.

Another special sighting is a pair of Flamboyant Cuttlefish, a bigger one and a very small one. They seem to like it around here, we have been seeing them each day for the last week. Also the Mimic Octopus is showing itself more, check out the very cool picture of the free swimming Mimic. Other then these, there are a lot of cool critters around, Robust and Ornate Ghostpipefish, Common Seahorses, many small Frogfish in all different colours and much much more.

So come over and enjoy diving here at Minahasa Lagoon – Dive & Tours Club.

The last 5 days we had the pleasure of having Ohm and Maria Savanayana as our guests. This was their 3rd trip to Minahasa Lagoon – Dive & Tours Club. The first time they came here was in 2009. As they really enjoyed it the first time they came back again in 2010, now in combination with Lembeh and again they came back last week before going on a liveaboard trip in Raja Ampat.

The first time they came here Ohm was taking pictures with a Sea&Sea DX1G but while diving here he realised quickly that the camera was not good enough to take pictures of all the macro life they saw around here. The second time they came, Ohm was equipped with a new and better camera, a Nikon D300S with a Seacam housing and strobes and Maria was shooting with the old Sea&Sea camera. This time they came fully equipped, Ohm with his Nikon D300S and Maria was now shooting with a Nikon D7000, also in a Seacam housing with Seacam strobes. And with all this nice equipment the hunt for the Blue Ring Octopus was on again. After all these times in North-Sulawesi, twice here and twice in Lembeh, they were never able to find a Blue Ring Octopus. During the dive briefing it was already mentioned that they never saw one but would love to see one. 3 days ago the moment was finally there. While diving the housereef it was there, the Blue Ring Octopus. And ofcourse their cameras were blasting away. Have a look yourself at the result. One picture of the Blue Ring and one picture of a pink Leaf Scorpionfish, both taken on the same dive at our housereef. Ohm shot the picture of the octopus and Maria shot the picture of the leaf fish.

Thank you very much Ohm and Maria for sharing these pictures and we will see them back here next year.

On September 23rd, 2011, the 47th Birthday of the province of North Sulawesi, Governor S. H. Sarundajang proudly proclaimed tarsiers as the official mascot of North Sulawesi.

Tarsiers are small, nocturnal primates. Adults weigh a little over 100 g, or about as much as a stick of butter. They eat mostly insects and have huge eyes for seeing at night and long legs for leaping from sapling to sapling. On Sulawesi, tarsiers live in small family groups of 3-11 individuals, and monogamous pairs are the most common social group. Sulawesi is home to eight species of tarsiers that are currently recognized by the IUCN, and three of those species are found in North Sulawesi. Other tarsier species are found in the Philippines and the islands of Borneo and Sumatra. Of all of these, however, North Sulawesi is the premier location in the world for tarsier tracking, that is viewing wild tarsiers in their native habitat. Each year thousands of tourists arrive from all over the world to experience the magic of seeing tarsiers in the wild.

Come and meet us and DEMA 2011. Just like the previous years, we will be exhibiting at this years DEMA show. This year the show takes place in Orlando, Florida and will be held from November 2 until 5, 2011.

You can find us at the Indonesian Pavilion – Booth # 1473

We are looking forward to meet you there. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to sent us an email : resort@minahasalagoon.com

2 Weeks ago the Celebrate The Sea(CTS) festival took place in Manado which was a great succes. Part of the CTS was a photo shoot out and photographers from all over the world were invited to North Sulawesi to compete for the prestigious “Most Influential Shoot Out Underwater Photographer of the Year award” with cash prize and holiday prize of USD5000 value. We had the pleasure of having one of the photographers, who was competing in the CTS shoot out, staying with us. Pamela Martin and her friend Jacky stayed with us for a few days before the CTS festival started. During these days she had to shoot photos and with these photos she was able to compete in the CTS Shoot out. Pamela did a very good job during the competition. In the end she won the OG Conservation Award, she got a High Commendation for “The Most Influential Underwater Photographer Shoot Out” and the Merit of Excellence for the Digital Trio. Here are a few of the pictures she shot during those days.

Thank you Pamela for staying with us and sharing these pictures with us and we wish you the best of luck for upcoming competitions. Check out Pamela’s website : www.pamela-martin-photography.com and see more of her photography.

The last 2 weeks we saw a lot of volcano activity here in North-Sulawesi. Here is a small update about the situation since we’ve got a lot of questions from guests and agents asking about this.

Mount Soputan was the first one that erupted. This one is a further away from the resort and did not affect or worry us at all. Mount Lokon is the one close by, about 30km away from the resort, and this is the one everybody worried about and was in the news all around the world. At the moment all is very quiet and the activity is not more then usual. We were not affected by any of the big eruptions which happened the last 2 weeks. We saw some sand and dust in the surrounding areas but nothing serious affecting us. Also the airport was not affected during these eruptions and has not been closed due to these eruptions.

All is save and fine and everybody can come and enjoy their holiday in Minahas Lagoon – Dive & Tours Club.

The 10th Celebrate the Sea Festival 2010 is once again gearing up to be the most exciting and inspiring festival of the sea in the Asia Pacific. Howard & Michelle Hall, world renowned film makers for their astonishing IMAX 3D productions of Deep Sea and Coral Reef Adventure, will be attending the September festival to share their adventures along with National Geographic’s deep-sea explorer Emory Kristof, acclaimed as among the first to discover the wreck of the Titanic. Attendees can expect very extraordinary presentations from a host of celebrated underwater luminaries including Dr Mark Erdmann, Leandro Blanco, Eric Bettens, Amanda Cotton, Steve Jones, Michael AW, Mathieu Meur, William Macdonald and Indonesia’s very own award-winning underwater photographer Ronny Rengkung.

With the association of the World Festival of Underwater Pictures, Le Festival Mondial de l’Image Sous-Marine – Marseille 2010 – now in its 37th year, Celebrate the Sea is seen as the most important underwater film and photographic event in the world outside of Europe.

One of the highlights of Celebrate the Sea is the 4-day photographic SOS ‘shoot out’ competition from 19-23 September; photographers from the world over are invited to North Sulawesi to compete for the prestigious “Most Influential Shoot Out Underwater Photographer of the Year award” with cash prize and holiday prize of USD5000 value.* The festival’s international underwater imagery competition also calls for entries from photographers and film makers to compete in the seven categories; Black and White print, Colour Print, Portfolio of Festival, Trio, Slide Shows, short video and feature length documentary.

The Celebrate the Sea weekend at the scenic Sintesa Peninsula Hotel Manado shall be jam packed with seminars on ocean conservation, climate change, underwater photographic workshops, a photographic exhibition and an international underwater film festival featuring winning films from the World Underwater Pictures Festival. Highlights of the weekend also include screening of films and prints in competition, slide show competition, children’s painting competition, photographic workshop, dive travel, and an exhibition of marine arts & craft. As in previous festivals, the event is the platform for OceanNEnvironment Australia to launch its annual shark conservation campaign. Over 5000 children will compete in this year’s Celebrate the Sea art competition and the finalists will be invited to compete in the final round to win the prestigious Ambassador for Sharks Award.

To find out more on how you can attend or support this inaugural event in Indonesia, email cts@oneocean.com or check www.CelebratetheSea.com