In the Shadow of Manado Tua pt3

Day 6 – Wide Angle (18-70)

• Fukui
• Sachiko
• Aba Point

Sharks! Sachiko point will be remembered as the site where I saw sharks and no doubt about it. Prior to the dive other guest on the boat told me they had seen three sharks the previous day and until that point I hadn’t even considered the thought they might be around. This changed things, just before we jumped in I told James that I wanted to see a Shark – actually I wanted to see three, just as the others had. “Uh ok” he says, “but no guarantees right?”. About 20 minutes into the dive and about 10-20metres below us I see a dim shape swimming below me and at the same time I hear James dinging on his tank and pointing below us – sure enough as the shape came closer we made out the unmistakable shape and swimming action of a shark, closer still and you could make out a white tip to it’s dorsal fin.

“Yahooooo”, my first shark! Ok, it wasn’t up close and personal but I didn’t care, this was a shark in the wild and a total happenchance encounter, I was thrilled. As it disappeared into the gloom beneath us I was again a happy man and again ‘ding, ding ding’ as James rapped on his tank pointing higher up in the water column but still below us. Another shark. Was it the same one? Hell, no. This one had a black tip and was clearly bigger than the previous shark. “Yes yes, yes!”. This was incredible, I asked in jest but never thought we would actually see one, let alone two sharks. Happily we moved on and continued along the wall. Incredibly 5 minutes later and James was excitedly dinging on his tank again, another black tip at about the same level as us but about 25 meters away from the wall. Fan-bloody-tastic. Funnily enough, I didn’t bother trying to get a photo of them I just stopped, hovered and watched all three.

Oh, we also saw barracuda and three frolicking puffer fish.



Day 7 – Wide Angle (18-70)

• Bunaken Timur
• Lekuan II
• Lekuan I

Yay, Sharks! Again almost on order 3 black tips appeared at Lekuan II but these came much closer, and closer they looked much bigger. A fantastic sight as we saw two of the black tips just below us one cruising just behind the other, then a third level with us and about 10 metres away. Again, no photos, just staring in awe, pulse racing with excitement.



Day 8 – Macro

The day of my 200th dive

• Odyssea Point II
• Wori Bay
• Tiwoho

Today was the day of my 200th dive and I knew in my bones that it was going to be spectacular. I readied my gear in the camera room and dashed onto the boat, this time the small Piccolo which I had to my self. We took the short trip to Odyssea point II and dropped in. Instantly we came across a fabulously coloured Nudi at about 14m and I pulled up the camera but I couldn’t see anything through the viewfinder. I checked to see that I had taken the lens cap off the macro port and looked through the viewfinder again; the camera was on and the lens was hunting for focus but I couldn’t see anything. I suspected instantly what had happened and, knowing what I would see, I turned the housing around and looked down the port to see the bright silver Nikon logo, which adorns all their lens caps – “Arrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhh”.
In my haste I’d forgotten to take it off – I was now paying the price for not taking a test shot after putting the gear together. “Right, I’m not doing the whole dive without the camera” I muttered into my reg and set off after James to tell him we were surfacing. Back at the boat I jump out, dry down the camera and in a dry area carefully removed the port and asked the skipper to remove the lens cap – I would have dripped seawater all over it. Once done, the port was screwed back on and quickly leak tested in the rinse bucket, gear back on and into the water. I didn’t take a test shot.
At about 13 metres James came to a bizarre looking thing on the sloping sand that looked like an upside down speckled jellyfish with thick arms; I was clueless as to what it was. James was pointing at something on the animal and looking closer I could see a small shrimp that clearly lived between the arms of this thing. “Oooh, lovely” I thought. I pulled the camera up, saw through the viewfinder and gently pulled the trigger to focus. Nothing happened. Ah, I must have the camera in Manual focus, so flicked the lever and tried again.

No movement.
Nothing.

Flick the focus selector switch again in desperation and still nothing. Again, another flash of realisation; I’d been playing with the macro lens the previous night and switched the lens itself into manual focus and not switched it back. I couldn’t believe it. The camera would still take a photo but who knows where the lens would focus. I recalled at that instant that the D70 has a trick where you can set the camera to fire once focus had been achieved, I also knew that the trick wouldn’t help me, I couldn’t remember how to do it. Pulling the camera up I looked through the viewfinder and moved slowly backwards and forwards in the hope that I would get a decent focus close in. Amazingly, I could get focus at about 4 inches from the subject, the trick was to judge visually when I had a good focus and then fire away. I didn’t think it would be wise to return to the boat to make the change again so just carried on with the rest of the dive swaying backwards and forward to focus. Once back on the boat I could again remove the port, flick the switch and I’d be back in business. Some spectacular 200th dive that was!

Back on the boat, nice and dry, I made the adjustment ready for the next dive repeating the leak test for the third time that day. Fatefully, I didn’t take a test shot. For those not in the know, the Nikon 60mm lens is a classic macro lens which gives a fantastically sharp image. As you have seen, it has a switch to allow auto or manual focus. It also has another switch – it is important because this switch can limit the focus of the lens. It is important to make sure you have this switch in the correct position – full focus or limited. It is important to remember that you check it.

An hour later we were ready again to dive and we jumped in at Wori Bay, dive 201. Halfway down the pinnacle and inside a small deep crack James found a leaf scorpion fish, again something I’d only seen in photos and behind the glass of an aquarium tank. Excellent. It was perched in a nice position allowing a full fish shot with a nice bit of negative space around it. Superb award winning shot coming up. I positioned myself at just under arms length away and slightly beneath the fish and up came the camera, a gentle pull on the shutter release and focus and focus and focus. The camera was hunting but getting nowhere near the right focus point. Then it hit me what was going on. I could only hang my head.


The focus limit switch was set to limit – it was set to close focus only. All I could manage was the face of the leaf scorpion fish. Never again when diving Wori Bay would I find the fish in such a good position in such good conditions. One day I might look back and find this funny.

The third dive was going to be different. We were returning to Tiwoho, I was going to get a nice full frame picture of the resident giant frogfish that we had seen the other day. As it was just me and James, we’d have no sand in the water and that elusive award winning photo this time of the fish sitting on its permanent position on the barrel sponge would be mine, nothing could stop me. The frogfish had gone. It was not to be seen.


Things got worse from there. Whilst looking for the fish and at about 13 meters I felt a small ache in my head – I just dismissed it as a CO2 thing from holding my breathe whilst taking photos. Very soon the ache felt like somebody was drilling into my skull and rubbing the back of my right eyeball with stinging nettles. I stopped doing everything and pushed on my mask hoping in vain that this would help. It didn’t and the pain got worse and the itching behind my eye made me sneeze. I called James, signed that I was in trouble and to ascend. We swam up the reef and slowly the pain began to lessen and then disappear at 5 minutes. That was a huge relief. I never felt anything like that before and I was worried that I had done something silly – I knew I hadn’t been stung so it wasn’t that. We ambled at 5m and again James called me to look at something at about 6m. I tried to descend but the pain returned – I was going nowhere but up and out. To top it off, we surfaced to more torrential rain. The pain went and replaced by a dull ache that subsided after about 2 hours.


A spectacular day for my 200th dive.