Off I went to the dive shop, where I noted a room for training with lots of dive related books, magazines, and novels for those that like to relax with a good book. Next to that is the equipment and dive gear room, then the compressor room.

Mimpi Indah has the ability to blend up to 40% nitrox, and all fills up to 32% are free, and for us rebreather types, they can decant un-boosted pure 02 that I tested out to 100%. They also have one set of 3 liter 02 and diluent Inspiration cylinders we left with them for future guest CCR use.

Since it was late in the afternoon I decided to walk around the surrounding grounds and go explore.

Behind the Mimpi Indah grounds off to the west is a trail through what was more or less a tropical jungle. After 50 or so meters I came across shallows with tidal mudflats bordered by mangroves at the waters edge that stretched from the rocky point as shown below left to the northwest shown as the below image #2.

The mangrove shallows were just teeming with mudskippers. These little amphibious guys can breathe out of water, and there were at least a hundred or so within each 10 square meters. It was really interesting trying to photograph them, as they are rather wiley. Juvenile needlefish as shown below right were also everywhere, and even more furtive then the mudskippers.

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Digressing, adjacent mangroves are the prime recipe for a healthy reef eco system, as it is perfect breeding grounds for juvenile fish not yet ready for the strong currents and predators.

We noted in the leisure hike that everything was just as lush as can be, there were plants growing on plants, strange white butterflies, and unfamiliar animal noises that a 1st time visitor could not differentiate between a bird or, mammal or a or lizard.

As evening approached it was time to get cleaned up in the bungalow. This too is an all bamboo and palm wood structure that was the cleanest accommodation we have stayed in.

The bathroom and shower area had an opaque roof that let quite a bit of light in which was nice, and the lavatory sink and mirror were modern, contemporary European models.

The semi open style shower in the bathroom area was plenty large enough for two which was a nice touch.

After getting cleaned and changed, it was off to dinner. This is just a short 3 minute walk along a white coral sand path. This leads to a bamboo walking bridge that descends down to the dining area as seen below. This was a really relaxing, tranquil experience where we hung out and relaxed while exchanged tall dive tales after feasting on tasty dishes like he fresh caught tuna below.

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Guests can either arrive at a specified meal time, or they will ring a bell to let you know when it is meal time, or if you are a sound sleeper you can request they send a staff to come knock on your door which is nice.

The whole grounds are really quiet, and the private beach is the perfect place for a moonlit stroll. What I personally got much amusement from was the walking path with its adjacent wild short grass. At one point I observed what looked like a reflection from the small kerosene path lamps glistening on moist plants, but upon closer inspection, the light source was moving. Sure enough, it was a firefly, something we don’t have on the west coast of the U.S.

Every evening as I walked to and from the bungalow I was on firefly watch, till I realized they liked to hang out up above, then I spotted dozens every walk. Cool!

Back to the bungalow for the evening, and one can either open all the windows and let the typically breezing northerly winds in, or there is a huge lounge couch on the porch, and this made for a really peaceful, quiet sound sleep. Nothing like silence but sounds of the wind in the trees, the occasional wave noise, and a comical gecko chirp or two to give you the rest you need for diving the next day.


Let’s Go Diving!

After breakfast around 8 am or so, next it was getting all the gear ready for the days diving. The dive boat staff from left to right was Refly the senior dive guide, Victor the junior dive guide, Jimmy the assistant resort manager, and Bobby the Totohe Captain. The Mimpi Indah dive boat staff was always ready to go before everyone else, so the below photo of the guys relaxing on the deck of the dive shop was a common site.

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Mimpi Indah has an excellent large painted board map that shows and lists all the best dive sites on Bangka Island as well as the surrounding dives at Gangga Island and the Lembeh Straits. Above is one of the three side by side boards with this one showing the Gangga, Bangka and upper most Sulawesi area.

All the gear including the HD video rig was all carried by staff to the boat which was really appreciated.

The Totohe is Mimpi Indah's primary dive boat seen below which was a shot I took in the late afternoon when the cool breeze blows. This is a newer boat that was really clean and well laid out, and with twin outboards, it's fast. Mimpi Indah has their act together as bottled water was always on board and there is always a DAN oxygen pack as well as a first aid kit.

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Almost all the dive sites are within 15 minutes of the resort grounds, but the time goes by really fast as one passes by interesting volcanic formations, pristine white coral sand beaches rarely visited by humans bordered by lush green jungle and stunning, azure crystal waters. This place rocks!

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The diving is just spectacular. Visibility ranged from 10-30 meters, and the array of soft corals, hard corals, invertebrates, fish and such was just unbelievable.

Macro photographers and videographers could have just staked out a 50 foot radius and never left the area, there were that many macro subjects. Almost every anemone had shrimp in it, and the crinoids were numerous. I’ve never seen such a density and variety of aquatic life.

We did dive about 20 minutes south of Mimpi Indah off a protruding volcanic pinnacle that I was promised would be a spectacular wide angle dive, but in typical fashion, one could pick from wide angle subjects, macro subjects, or both. This dive location was one of the very few I actually ran into other divers, where we ran into about 8 divers from the North Sulawesi Aggressor. Every single diver had some form of camera, most being higher end pro equipment.

Left the HD Video Rig On Board - Big Mistake!

After a days diving we decided to make the last dive right in front of the resort in about 5-10 meters of water. I decided to leave the HD video rig on board and just make it a fun dive. Big mistake! Right there in the shallows hiding in staghorn coral was a magnificent Platax pinnatus juvenile batfish. Pinnate batfish in juvenile form are jet black, have extremely tall elegant flowing dorsal and ventral fins fringed by an almost illuminated orange perimeter banding. They are just stunning animals that are rare to see. Oh well, hopefully over the next week we’d run into another one, so I vowed to not dive again without the HD rig.

Refly our main dive guide was immensely entertaining without trying to be. He hails from the local main town of Manado, and comes in with each new arrival of guests.
He was quite deft with the stainless steel pointing rod most dive guides carry, and he knew just how to gently assist in coaxing without stressing the macro subjects into the viewfinder.

I had given him a list of the items I had hoped to see and video, and he found almost all of them. One animal I was keen to video was the beautifully odd Banggai cardinalfish, and upon my inquiry he deadpanned back; “How many do you want to see, 500 or 1000?”

In between dives, he was always mockingly singing some American songs like Britney Spears song or Bob Marley’s ”No Woman, No Cry” and it was contagious as well, and we all frequently broke into a group a capella song mock.

When we weren’t clowning around in between dives, the Totohe is set up with ample bench space for napping inside or on top of the main deck.

The 2nd dive guide was always there to hand me a cup of bottled water after suiting up, and to hand me a towel when I de-kitted after a dive.

Our boat captain Bobby was always helpful and competent and frequently put his mind together with Refly of where the next dive site would be based upon tides, conditions and what critters we were interested in seeing. If we asked to dive in an area known for a particular critter, we either went straight there, or we were told that the dive site where the animal frequents was in the wrong tidal phase, but we would go there on such and such day and time, and they didn’t forget to make that happen. I can rattle off scientific and generic names for some of the most odd animals and my long list is committed to memory. Refly didn’t forget any of it…impressive! But still no additional Pinnate batfish sighting…

The Lembeh Straits Beckons

After 3 days of never visiting the same dive site twice around Bangka Island, we planned on making a 3 tank dive day trip to the Lembeh Straits which is about 60-70 minutes scenic boat ride south of Bangka Island. Below is what our view was from the Totohe approaching the Straits.

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There is a popular hypothesis that the land mass that forms the East Sulawesi area encompassing ports like Bitung and the Lembeh Island a mile across the Straits were originally two far apart land masses that through plate shifting, brought two incredibly divergent aquatic biospheres that co-mingled into some of the most bizarre macro critters known.

The area is primarily black volcanic sand and many dive sites have very limited plant and coral growth. It is precisely that reason why the wild colored macro critters are so easy to spot and photo or video.

Our first dive in the Straits brought us to a large sea slug with a pair of Periclimenes imperator commensal shrimp. This origin of the scientific name appears to not be definitively known. While imperator is clearly emperor, Periclimenes is either Periklymenon the shape shifting character in the Greek mythological fable of Jason and the Argonauts, or periclymenum, which is Greek for honeysuckle, a flower that changes shape and color. My guess is Jason in Jason and the Argonauts was named after the shape shifting honeysuckle.

Again Refly our dive guide gently encouraged the colorful shrimp to stay on top of the slug as I videotaped it rather than the shrimp reverting to the safer underside.

Our second dive was going to be the place for Banggai cardinalfish. There was no shortage of subjects, and Refly’s numerical interragotive became clear-they were everywhere!

There’s an interesting thing about these fish. We know that clownfish acclimate themselves to each separate host anemone gradually, till they can safely interact without triggering the host anemone’s pneumatocyst stinging cells. But on this expedition I encountered over a dozen different, divergent species fish that also were able to safely contact the anemone tentacles without being stung, and the Banggai cardinalish was one of them.

On our second Lembeh Straits dive we videotaped an unknown flatfish, a large deadly stonefish who was quite the buoyancy control motivator, vertically camouflaged razorfish, a yellow ornate ghost pipefish hanging around a green clump of algae, and a tiny juvenile octopus that we shot about five minutes of him trying to slowly extricate himself from the glare of the dual HID video lights. Eventually he had had enough of the video paparazzi, so in cue he elected to employ the odd behavior of curling up into a ball, and using two tentacles to locomote bipedally. Oh, what a magnificent animal and display that was!

We did run into a few other local traditional style dive boats, and the majority were not on par with the Totohe we were on. I did notice that dive boat captains and guides from local resorts all shared critter information with other captains regardless of which resort they were from, and often we tied up to another dive boat and vice versa during surface intervals so as to reduce anchor casting by utilizing single moorings for multiple boats.

Refly inquired with several boat captains if anyone had run into a rhinopias which was on my list, and sure enough, Refly got a tip that there was a purple rhinopias spotted that day at a depth of 15 meters at a particular dive site, and off we were. After searching for 15 minutes, there he was!

Our last dive of the day in the Straits was at a site that was like a cavern carved out from erosion in volcanic rock on the west side of the Straits as shown below. This put it in the shade, and the water was quite calm. As we approached the designated mooring rope, I looked down at the vertical volcanic rock of the vertical cove wall. I don’t know if any of you have been to Disneyland in Los Angeles and been on the Submarine Voyage ride, but attached to the docking areas' blue concrete wall were artificial starfish and sea fans. Well, at this dive site, there were the same things, only ten time more dense and real.

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Rumor had it that within a crevice there was what we call in the U.S. a “red flame scallop”, but Refly the dive guide called it an electric clam. I initially corrected him on the clam versus scallop name, but it appears he was right after all, as after some research it is appears to correctly be called a “file clam” although the common apparently improper name is flame scallop.

Sure enough, we found a crevice and there in wedged back into it was a small clam with a red mantle that was producing flashing arcs of very noticeable white light along its mantle. I captured some great macro HD video footage of that amazing animal. Wait till you see it!

The remainder of the dive was done at this sight as it was full of soft corals, clear water and lots of macro subjects within plant growth.

If you want, during your longer lunch interval, the Mimpi Indah crew will come up to the shore in Lembeh and you can sit down, eat lunch, relax, walk around or play ping-pong with the terminally cute local gawking village kids who are adorable, it is just a 5 minute excursion to the beach.

All too soon we left the Straits. As to the ride back, the entire time I was there the seas were always smooth, pleasant, and I was glued to taking in the beautiful surround land and ocean scenery as we traveled, making the time pass by in a flash.

Now, Where Is That Batfish?

The next day back on Bangka Island, we looked at every dive site for a suitable juvenile Pinnate batfish to video. We did find one a neighboring beach reef, but it was a shallow muck dive in 5 feet of water and the visibility was not suitable for video.

After a full days diving, since the next day was our last, we decided to do a night dive that evening. Refly and Bobby knew that hairy pink squat lobsters were still on my list, so off to a 20 foot deep much dive we were. Funny thing is, Refly had a night dive light that could best be described as a backup. Although I carry a backup too, I don’t bother with a main light when I bring the HD video rig. When Refly was trying to sort out his dive light situation, I just calmly deadpanned to him: “You won’t need a light - trust me”. Well, they didn’t, and after more fiddling, he had his backup as his primary. Over the side he went, and he floated on the surface waiting for me. Over the side I went, and then I set my 35-50W dual video HID’s to the lower 35 watts setting, and turned them both on. Simultaneous laughter erupted from everyone including Refly and the crew, as now they knew what I meant, it was like diving in the day, as the dual HID’s set apart are like a giant high intensity flood light casting light in a 20 foot radius. Refly’s backup light became completely unnecessary.

Within just 10 minutes, a particular brown coral with projections was being closely inspected by Refly, and he turned and gave me that look that I learned meant victory.

On the surface and within the recesses of that coral were at least half a dozen hairy pink squat lobsters. While setting up to macro video them, I noticed a tiny almost transparent shrimp just a centimeter or so long that either really liked my dive lights, really liked the coral projection he was on, or thought the coral projection was like a single parallel bar and he was the gymnast, as round and round he went in rapid succession about a dozen times like a kid on a merry-go-round. Next was some great HD footage of several hairy pink squat lobsters sparring for turf.

The remainder of the night dive found reef squid on the surface capitalizing on my dive lights and the plankton, more razorfish, a juvenile cuttlefish that had no intention on being videotaped, and menagerie of macro shrimp.

I found that I couldn’t video a subject longer than 2 minutes or the plankton would be come so dense it became amusingly comical.

Last Dive Day

On the last day of diving we looked all about for Hymenocera pictas and H. Elegans also known as Harlequin or Clown shrimp, but we were told they are rare in these parts. I did get some great macro of some new critters. One was a tiny juvenile frogfish the size of a pinky fingernail that couldn't really swim yet, but oh how he desperately closed his gills to jet a centimeter with each breath.

As our time was winding down, we decided to just do the last dive in the shallows right on the house reef right in front of Mimpi Resort.

Now Mimpi's house reef is great on it’s own, and is perfect for snorkeling in the calm waters. We were searching all over to see if for some unlikely chance, that batfish we saw from a week prior was still around. We made pass after pass up and down along the front of the house reef, each time at a slightly different depth, looking deep within the staghorn coral for our elusive Pinnate batfish, to no avail. We were finally down to within 5 minutes of time to surface with no sign of the Mr. Batfish, and just then Refly turned his head, motioned excitedly to me, and as I looked to where he was pointing, we started "High Fiving” each other underwater! There he was, the same magnificent juvenile jet black batfish we saw the week prior, complete with flowing, exaggerated jet black dorsal and pectoral fins frigned with bright orange. Although there was some reduced visibility so close to shore, I spent a good 10 minutes videotaping that one subject, and the footage came out great. I think Refly's new nickname should be Batman, and he should now move on from Britney Spears and Bob Marley to mockingly singing the theme song from the Batman TV show.

Who would have thought, the last dive, on the last day, down to the last five minutes, and there he was such a magnificent animal! Just about every critter I had hoped to capture on HD video, I was able to. The rest of the afternoon I just walked around on the resort and took in some of the beautiful below sights.

Sadly We Leave Our New Friends

It seemed like just yesterday that we had arrived, but now it was time to pack and say our goodbyes.

All the equipment was carried for us to the boat, and we elected to take the smaller speedboat as they call it.

I walked one last time around the resort to say my goodbyes, and the sight of all standing on the beach waving as we motored away was bittersweet.

In Conclusion

For decades I have seen the most magnificent, beautiful tiny animals and plants in fine art coral reef animal books, knowing it would probably stay just a dream, but thanks to my new friends at Mimpi Indah Resort, I got to see first hand and video animals of almost indescribable oddity and beauty that most non-divers can't even dream of.

Our hats are off to you, Owen and Ulva and staff, as the result of your dream of opening and running a dive resort results in people being able to experience and see things so amazingly spectacular, they will forever remember it as one of the joyous highlights in a persons life, as it will certainly be one of ours!