This week in Bunaken… Dive guide Rolly really made the day for his divers, Magnus and Jonas from Denmark, when he found this stunning pair of halimeda ghost pipefish on the dive site Alung Banua. Halimeda ghost pipefish are very rare and sought after by many macro enthusiasts so we are super excited to have them here. Seeing that this is a pair we are hoping that they are going to hang around for a while! (Thank you Jonas for the photo!)

A few days later dive guide Sandy found another pair of halimeda ghost pipefish, this time on the dive site Cela – Cela, so all our fingers are crossed that this is just the beginning of plenty of sightings.

In the beginning of the week all divers noticed that the temperature was dropping slightly from the usual steady 28 degrees to 26-27. This might not seem like much, but anyone who has been in the water and felt just a one degree drop in temperature knows that it is very noticable. So, if you know what one degree difference feels like, imagine the shock that our instructor Dom had when he hit a thermocline where the water was 19 degrees! A few days later Ben from Switzerland, who comes to Bunaken a couple of times every year, cursed himself for leaving his wetsuit on the boat when his computer showed him that the ice cream headache he felt came from the 15 (!!) degrees water around him! Brrrrr!! Everyone are now very hesitant to just dive in board shorts… Luckily this has been isolated, patchy thermoclines and not the temperature for the whole dives, but we are hoping that it means that maybe some deep living creatures like mola-mola might come up to the shallows for a visit.

There has also been quite some currents during the week (which is probably the reason for the thermoclines), but the divers who braved them were rewarded with plenty of big fish action as well as sharks and eagel rays.

Can’t wait what surprises next week will bring us!