Thursday, December 31, 2015

Happy New Year 2016!!

It's so winderful full of star nights here on Bunaken.
And also amazing big red moon came up, too!!



Saturday, December 26, 2015

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Have a good Sunday!

Manado tua island from Bunaken Lekuan point. 

WHALE SHARK!!!

Yesterday at 2nd dive.

Diver Guests saw a
young whale shark at 9m shallow water!!!

One of our guest is a new diver, and this is her second dive and it's "the first day as a diver".
What a lucky diver!
This is why they say about "Beginner's Luck"...??!!!
also bit early in the season, usually around Jan to Feb we heard diver saw them around Bunaken, Manato Tua area also at Cha Cha 2 point (almost our house reef corner), I saw one in August though. But it's looks like they really constantly coming through around Bunaken area.

We normally explain to our guests, Bunaken is famous for marine biodiversity more than big fish but they are here.
Every year, we see Dugongs, Mola Mola (Sun fish) as well.

Special thanks to Ms.T - our repeater guest from Jakarta, she introduced to these guests to come to Cha Cha. We have very happy guests here.













photo by free photo site( photo AC).

Sunday, October 25, 2015

Small but amazing! Bornellidae, Notodoris serenae Gosliner & Behrens, 1997

It's only few centimater creature but nudibranch has a qiute variety of the color and shapes.

Type of Bornellidae 
This nudy look like Chirstmas tree....?!

Baby Notodoris serenae (Gosliner & Behrens, 1997)
This one growing bigger like more than 10cm long but top color will change to white.

Survigin without rain...

Luckly our Italian olive plant still growing on our balcony without rain for almost 5 month, we do give them water, of course, but we were very worryed if they can survive with this conditon.

Rocket(Italian Rucola/roquette) flower ↓






Monday, September 28, 2015

Big moon night @ Bunaken Island.

Suppose to be super moon but could not get a good forcus, cause not only not used tipod but also our cat "Balls" pushing his body against my leg quite aggressively starving for cuddle... umm.
but it's very clear and nice big moon tonight.


Have a good night!

Saturday, September 26, 2015

Quick "Milk stand" or filling station...?!

Before

After

Pink Eye Goby can be beautiful but tough for presbyopic...?!

Pink-eye-Goby.
Tiny tiny creature who got pink color eyes and transparent body with golden yellow color organ, the size is only 1.5cm body even biggest one in this group.

No wonder many photographer divers especially in Japan are crazy about this fish.
umm... they are so beautiful!
Got to have a good macro lense or a BIG magnifying glass or a pair of good reading glasses?? to see this one though.

Warter temp. back to normal around Bunaken Island.

Luckly for us, but maybe not for coral?, water temp. came back to average level around Bunaken which is like 28-29℃.
This is the famous "Bunaken Drop off" from above.

Saturday, September 12, 2015

Double-lined mackerel

In the chilly, full of plancton water, I met few "Double-Lined Mackerel" around 50cm long, slim body fish.



Snorkeling in the cool water temp.(25-27℃) at Bunaken

Still quite chilly water continue around Bunaken area. maybe this is the El Nino influence...??
Usually average water temperature is 28-29℃ in this area.
and still good weather, no rain.  umm...



Sunday, August 30, 2015

After tiny flowers..

I noticed tiny not colorful, some small flowers bloomed on our "Mango tree" the other day. 
Almost week later, baby mango started to coming out!! 

Haze season...?!

The season came that farmers, plantation owners and miners to set fire in the forest to clear land in Manado main land during dry season. 

Monday, August 17, 2015

What the driest beautiful weather will bring to us near future?

CNN.co.jp  news said "There is a possibility of the strongest "El Nino" in the history we might have in this year".
Beautiful weather is good for the business, but little bit scarely news for near future...?!


Cold Water in Summer High Season

Water temp still bit cold (around 27 degrees), sometimes we meet 24 degrees water while diving. lot of plancton thus fish looks so happy and so many.





Sunrise from Cha Cha

Our guests enjoy watching everyday different and beautiful sunrise from Cha Cha.
    and sunset reflection (pink sky) and "Milkyway" starly nights. 


Puppy

One of Hana's boy puppy. 




Monday, August 10, 2015

Wire Coral Crab

We had quite strong south wind for few days thus many boats went to dive and snorkeling at east side of Bunaken Island.
to avoid crowed dive site, we decided to go to "Raimond point" (one of my favorite dive/snoekeling site) and found this very colorful orange crab call "Wire Coral Crab" or sometimes "Spider Crab" mimic a whip coral.


water temp. was 26 degree, it's 2 degree colder than usual Bunaken water temp.  umm... COLD!!!

Saturday, July 18, 2015

Total Solar Eclipse 9th March 2016


I found interesting travel tour in Japan for Total Solar Eclipse in Indonesia March next year.
strange enough Manado is not included in their tour, but they were saying "more east you go is better to see this total solar eclipse", so why not to come and see it in Manado/Bunaken...??



Photo and news from this site(in Japanese)
http://www.astroarts.co.jp/news/2015/07/17tour/index-j.shtml


Link using "Google translate"
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ja&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=ja&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.astroarts.co.jp%2Fnews%2F2015%2F07%2F17tour%2Findex-j.shtml&edit-text=&act=url


Saturday, July 04, 2015

Meet our guests/friend in Bologna

In Italy...
This time we were also lucky to meet our guests Antonella and Moreno in Bologna.
They've been to Cha Cha two years ago, since then we keep in touch in FB.

When we visit Bologna first time few years ago, it was too hot and also maybe we were too tired, could not enjoy staying in this world famous city.
but last month Antonella and Moreno kindly enough showed us around Bologna, we've changed our impression of this city completely.
Especially we were so impressed about their "Evening to night walking tour".  Wow...Awesome!! 


For lunch, they took us very traditional Bolognese restaurant where we had excellent "Tortellini brod" (tortellini served in broth- one of signature food in Bologna). 
In the Roman legend, tortellini was Venus's favorite food according to "Wiki" in Japanese page.
We were busy eating, forgot to take picture though.....

Moreno and Antonella, thank you for invited us to nice home dinner with your family!!
It was unforgettable time for us.
Moreno e Antonella, grazie per invitato noi a bella cena casa con la famiglia !!
Era ricordo indimenticabile per noi.
Grazie mille!! 














Friend and Olive Oil

Since I studied and received my  “Wine Sommelier" and also "Olive Oil Sommelier" license in Italy last year, now not only understanding wine but also we start having a passion for "real good olive oil".  

Before all this, I thought oil is oil, did not notice so much difference between the good one and bad one.
It's like many non "rice eater” who might think the rice is all same, or not so much different to the others but there are a big differences, taste, flavor, old one, new one, etc.

Anyway...  just before we went to Italy, we got information about one of world best olive oils came from a Sicilian medieval town call "Buccheri" - where our Sicilian friend Emanuele Hesael Pavano (some call "Siracusa Jonny Depp") comes from. He is a singer in Siracusa, we met him in a restaurant at Ortigia, enchanted by  his performance and romantic voice

So we visited Siracusa and met him again last month.
He was very kind and drove us to his home town "Buccheri", managed to meet a producer of the world gold award olive oil "Agrestis Flore D'oro DOP", and very fortunately got the oil, too!!!! ….we could carry back only two bottles but so so happy.

Emanuele, La ringrazio molto per tutto!!

"Buccheri" is about 1hour and half away from Siracusa by car.

Agrestis Flore D'oro DOP
(got Gold Award in New York International Olive Oil Competition in 2013)



Emanuele Hesael Pavano
Thank you very much, Emanuele!! 
Grazie mille, Emanuele!!







Sunday, May 17, 2015

Mr.Hirano's Photo Gallery May2015

Let us introduce Mr.Hirano "a Japanese world traveller"'s Photo.

Spinecheek anemonefish

Latticed Butterflyfish

Signalfin Gobi

Pennant Bannerfish




Big Thanks to Mr.Hirano san from Cha Cha!!

Friday, May 01, 2015

Salp around Bunaken Island

Salp

around Bunaken Island, we have seen quite few different types of Salp like this picture.
Usually "Transparent Alian" looking creature.
(photo taken March2015 by R.Downey)  
What is "Salp"?!

"A salp (plural salps) or salpa (plural salpae or salpas[1]) is a barrel-shaped, planktonic tunicate. It moves by contracting, thus pumping water through its gelatinous body. Salp jet propulsion is one of the most efficient in the animal kingdom.[2]The salp strains the pumped water through its internal feeding filters, feeding on phytoplankton." 

Our Guests saw yesterday one of Salp was shape like this one.





by Bunaken Cha Cha