I just can't wait. I was going to write about my trips to Amsterdam and Beijing before anything else; but I was just too excited about my recent dive trip to Manado, Indonesia; especially the underwater photos that I took there. I spent the first day back in the States not resting but busily "cleaning" and "cropping" the photos with Adobe Photoshop, organizing the photos (including tagging and file naming), and finally uploading them to Flickr for sharing the photos with the rest of the world.

The entire collection of my underwater photos can be found on my brand new account.

Below is a sample (the top 20) of the photos that I took from my dive trip to Manado, Indonesia:

Anemone Crab (3 cm)	Anemone Hermit Crab (10 cm) Notice the sea anemone on the hermit crab's shell. The crab is chewing on something.
Blue Spot Sea Hare (18 cm) One of the most bizarre creature I have seen in Lembeh Strait. It's a sea slug, and it is shaggy and big.	Clark's Anemonefish (6 cm) One of my favorite fishes to photograph underwater. This one was quite startled by my presence but it settled down when I took the picture.
Cleaner Shrimp (2.5 cm) Cleaner shrimp provides cleaning service to fishes by eating parasitic creatures on the host skin. This one, however, was found sleeping in a burrow during a night dive.	Coral (Heliogungia Actiniformis) Close up shot of a coral.
Flower Soft Coral (Xeniidae) This is one of the most beautiful corals I have ever seen. Each of the feather-like feeding tentacles displays a beautiful fluidic movement.	Juvenile Clark's Anemonefish and Anemone Shrimp (3 cm) Close up shot of a juvenile Clark's anemonefish and an anemone shrimp.
Mantis Shrimp (25 cm) I was lucky to find this elusive mantis shrimp hiding in a hole. Treat this creature with great respect. Also known as smashers, they have powerful claws that they use to attack and kill prey by spearing, stunning, or dismemberment.	Nudibranch (Chromodoris Elizabethina) (4 cm) The highly ornate nudibranch conspicuously warns predators that it is toxic.
Ornate Ghost Pipefish (7 cm)	Pink Anemonefish (8 cm) Another Nemo moment.
Ribbon Eel (40 cm) Adult females have blue/yellow colored body. Males and juveniles have black body.	Snake Fish and Transparent Cleaner Shrimp Another bizarre fish with only the head protruding out from the sand. Notice the two transparent shrimps (look very carefully, click on the picture for the magnified version if you can't see them).
Soft Coral (Sinularia) (Close up)	Tube Sea Anemone (Close up)
Tubeworm (2 cm) (Extreme Close up) A tubeworn with its feather-like feeding tentacles. It is found next to a sea urchin.	Two Undulated Moray Eels Morays are usually solitary creatures. I was lucky to find a pair of morays.
Unidentified Creature I cannot identify this creature despite consulting several marine field guides. From a far, it certainly looks like a sea worm but upon closer inspection, it looks more like a nudibranch. Is it a sea worm or nudibranch?	Frogfish This is a bottom-dwelling fish.

See more of the underwater pictures at !!!

9/5/2006 12:32:41 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Scuba Diving