Malam. Gelap. Menyelam.
Di saat lampu senter menyorot mahluk-mahluk laut yang terlelap atau bahkan lebih aktif mencari mangsa, saat itulah laut merubah atmosfir berbeda dari biasanya. Jika terumbu warna -warni terlihat ceria di saat siang, keadaan penyelaman malam hari memberikan warna yang lain. Ada yang bilang spooky, ada yang bilang magis..tapi apalah arti kata orang kalau kita tidak mencobanya sendiri . , Beberapa cerita termasuk rambu-rambu yang perlu diperhatikan saat menyelam malam hari dibahas di edisi ini.
Jangan lupa bawa kopi panas dan sarung ya.. )

Editor in Ronda

Malam. Gelap. Menyelam.
Di saat lampu senter menyorot mahluk-mahluk laut yang terlelap atau bahkan lebih aktif mencari mangsa, saat itulah laut merubah atmosfir berbeda dari biasanya. Jika terumbu warna -warni terlihat ceria di saat siang, keadaan penyelaman malam hari memberikan warna yang lain. Ada yang bilang spooky, ada yang bilang magis..tapi apalah arti kata orang kalau kita tidak mencobanya sendiri . , Beberapa cerita termasuk rambu-rambu yang perlu diperhatikan saat menyelam malam hari dibahas di edisi ini.
Jangan lupa bawa kopi panas dan sarung ya.. )

Editor in Ronda

Accompanied by a little flashlight, I walked on the beach around Teluk Kri, Raja Ampat. Took a peek in between the roots of mangroves ad seagrass which swept away by the small waves of quiet sea. The atmoshpere of night on the beach was so romantic..hhhmm…
Once, we talked a bit about things while searching for the presence of this little predator in the night with his sharp eyes. I didn’t know whether he was looking at us who were trying to find him or he was just not there at the moment.

Hemiscyillum freycineti, an epaulette shark who walks with his fin, one of the 50 species that is recently found on Kelapa Burung Papua in a research which has been declared in 2010. This nocturnal animal usually hides between the corals in a day light. This shark is unique for it has ability to survive in a low oxygen intensity condition by deactivating some of unnecessary brain functions. Apparently, this ability is the way of adaptation for hunting in subsided puddle with lower oxygen intensity. Well, this is some kinda condition which usually happens when i see a cute guy approaches hahahahahaha *brain freeze mode on :p

I was still busy, finding him out among the roots of mangroves, until my friend whispered to me,”Psssst…here…”, then i sneaked, and i wondered how exactly the Kalabian local named shark was. Was he really as cruel as it has been depicted on those cool underwater photos?
I opened my eyes widely, looking for a fish above the seagrass. But where’s heeee? I couldn’t see hiiim!
“Theeereee…iiihh..inside the seagrass..look closeer..!”
I focused my eyes as I followed the instruction..aaahhh finally found him! He’s small and I just nodding in silence.
Actually, Kalabia was not as big as I thought before. The one we found that night was just around 30 cm long. Hey little fish, you shouldn’t go out from your home at niiighhtt :p
His body pattern was camouflaged in the middle of seagrass. In this shallow water he lived happily, waiting for his prey to pass by. But, one thing that really excite me was his cat-look-alike eyes, sharp and big enought to support his night hunting. You don’t need to dive to find him, with a flashlight and sharp eyes you can find him around seagrass and mangrove roots.
And we went back to resort to prepare our night dive. Wuuuushhhh!
Our dive guide, a native Papua, reminded us about our night dive gears. He also explained and described us about fishes that we might find later, such as grouper and shark reef.
Jumped to the water and we directly went to 10 meter depth, without knowing what else we could meet here.
No more than 10 minutes when a big grouper passed by. Reef fishes looked sleep in silence. A parot fish lied under table reef, and a moray tried to catch a fish in the dark. Some shrimps were more colorful than others, few crabs walked around above the sand, and a family of clown fish was sleeping inside anemon. Eventhough it’s in total darkness, underwater species were quite busy actually.
Our dive guide aimed his flashlight in a spot that we had not looked before, and we’re all shocked! There’s a species, a big species, the size was about 2 meters! I looked at my dive guide and he looked me back with his dazzled eyes. Slowly we moved above him. Seemed like he’s enjoying his sleep. From the shape of his body, it’s a shark! The body was thin and long. But, dot marks in his body..hhmm.. never saw this before. His eyes were small, the mouth was quite similar with nurse shark’s, but this was not nurse shark. I had pictured him before he left away. And I really wanted to finish this dive, back to the ground and searched information as many as I could about the shark that we met before.
After the dive, I opened my shark identification book, trying to match his characteristics and habitat with other sharks on the book. And I finally found it! He’s Stegostoma fasciatum, a zebra shark! Spread on tropical waters in West Pasific dan Hindia Ocean. The interesting characteristics were his lenght could be more than 3,5 meters, active at night, and hhm.. harmless. Wow, the last thing that could show on human’s imagination when they heard about “shark” was “being eaten, harmful, and cruel” but not this shark! The book said that this kind of sharks was the most kind shark in the world. Wow…
Amazing night it was. Hhmm.. couldn’t wait to meet something new tomorrow ☺

“Bagai membongkar isi dapur Divemag Indonesia” itulah isitilah yang tepat bagi event Magablog Presentation di @america 9 feb lalu. Bahasannya mulai dari isi konten, foto-foto ciamik dan ide kreatif menciptakan lay out dan design. Pembicaranya tentu saja sang ibu divemag @r_djangkaru, underwater photographer @pinneng, dan designer grafis @capburungwalet. Hadir juga Mba Lidwina Marcella dari @MongabayID, Green Dillon dari U.S Embassy dan MC oleh kakak cantik @marischkaprue. Event ini juga sebagai grand launching dari #diveblog competition yang diadakan oleh Divemag Indonesia dan U.S Embassy.

#savedolphin with Ric O’ Barry

Konsistensi upaya @JAAN_Indonesia dalam menyelamatkan lumba-lumba dari eksploitasi sirkus keliling di Indonesia telah membawa “Sang Leluhur Pencinta Lumba-Lumba Dunia” Ric O’ Barry datang ke Indonesia. Ric merupakan pembuat film dokementer The Cove yang bercerita tentang pembantaian besar-besaran lumba-lumba di Taiji, Jepang. Acara #savedoplhin ini diselenggarakan di @atamerica 5 february lalu. Selain dihadiri hampir 600 audience, juga dihadiri Bapak Kemenhut @zul_hasan, dan Dubes US Scot Marciel. Saat itu Bapak @Zul_hasan mengatakan “yang mendapatkan izin lumba-lumba ada 3 tempat: SeaWorld Ancol, Taman Safari, dan Wersut Seguni Indonesia, tapi sirkus keliling itu ILEGAL. Jika ada sirkus keliling laporin aja ke kita.” Dan Ric pun menegaskan, kita sebagai masyarakat dapat membantu menghentikan eksploitasi lumba-lumba dengan tidak membeli tiket pertunjukannya. Mending langsung ke laut aja yuk, nyelem bareng lumba-lumba.

Editor in GTO

Editor in GTO

There are some flights that can be chose to go to Gorontalo. However, if we’re talking about dive operator, perhaps we can choose the first dive operator in Gorontalo that is managed by a kind American, Rantje Allen from Miguel’s Diving. She is thin with a red hair and green eyes, and she always smiles. She welcomed me the next morning before our first dive. I didn’t expect much, I just wanted to dive in Gorontalo waters.