I live in a hole

I've been through the entire Debelius book of Crustaceans of the world and I can't find what it is

One in a million

OMG! Dives like this really don't happen every day or even every year - & I am taking an introductory diver at 11m for his 4th ever underwater exploration. We are diving from the Mangrove mooring westwards. The visibility is as clear as it can be top to bottom. Fish everywhere. Then below us the black tip reef shark cruises by in the other direction. Minutes later a middle aged (i.e pretty big)  Green turtle slowly lifts it's bulk from the reef to cross our path seawards. My diver shook my hand.
We continue our saunter along the dramatic wall interrupted by the masses of fusilier, mackerel and the rest around us - just the two of us no-one else in sight.
Making for the the ledge at 5m preparing to surface. No,  stop... what's that looming out of the blue - WHALESHARK!! a mere baby at around 5-6m. We have enough air to backtrack and follow it for a heavenly few minutes before it turns and fades back into the blue. OK, time to go, safety stop.  But no, my diver taps my shoulder - behind you, the magnificent beast is heading straight at us for a last encounter - awesome :))))
oh how I wish I hadn't flooded my camera

World Oceans Day

Reef Seen in Pemuteran has always prided itself in promoting a caring attitude to our fragile natural world. Every day our beach and shoreline are swept to remove the debris from stupid and careless people who seem to think it's OK to leave a trail of plastic behind them.  As a result we have a healthy reef and pleasant environment for everyone to enjoy. 

Today was especially important as our small local efforts get the boost of worldwide publicity from this internationally celebrated day.  To encourage a future generation to keep up the good work over 40 children from Pemuteran SD5 school came down to our beach this morning.

After signing the World Oceans Day pledge we armed them with collection bags, gloves and tongs provided by kind support of Reef Check Organisation.  They headed off down the beach and through the fishing village making a real impact. 

You can see a fuller pictorial story on our FaceBook Page.

Go GREEN!!

We are delighted - and immensely proud - to have achieved Green Star Award status with PADI today. To do this we proved to PADI that we put into practice what we believe in to help protect, conserve and educate. There are obvious things you already know us for. Working with the Reef Gardeners to physically keep the reefs in good shape. Talking to our many guests and visitors to take care when they go in to the sea whether for diving, snorkelling and even just swimming - the reefs are beautiful and we want them to stay that way. And then there are many not so obvious things for reducing our impact on the environment including recycling materials, low energy lighting, sustainable energy sources, bio-septic tanks and many more. Come and see for yourselves. Why not join in next month and make it count on World Oceans day 8 June....

Little Critters rule

Our friends from Germany, Holger and Sula, return for their fourth (or is it fifth) year running to Reef Seen and Pemuteran. Seems they just can't get enough. A new exploration for them to day to Spooky point, near Napoleon Reef did not disappoint on the expansive slightky eerie coral landscape. Holger described it as like being in Tim Burton's film, Sleepy Hollow. Many nudibranch, the frilly dancing juvenile clown sweetlips, flathead crocodile fish and the smallest dragonette you can imagine included in the cast.

Serene and Robust

We had a bit of a rough time in March while the cyclone blew off the NW coast of Australia bringing 2m crashing waves, but flat calm seas are now restored again at our beach front resort. Going out to inspect the reefs on Kebun Chris we found a family of robust ghost pipefish have taken up residence on the coral bommie under Reef Spirit our Menjangan cruise - very nice to see. Unfortunately the storm did break some of the acropora corals but with a little Reef Gardeners' TLC we have tidied things up and the healthy reefs will do the rest to mend.
And the internet engineers have been busy installing a new magic box so now within the grounds of our centre we are pleased to offer our residents Free wi-fi internet access.