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#1
10-02-2007, 04:42 AM
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My Lembeh Blog....
Hi Everyone,
Since I'm supposed to have pretty good internet access in Lembeh, I thought I would start a blog, so rather than write a trip report when I get back and I have forgotten everything, I'll do it day by day as I go. Right now I am in Singapore, and I have been awake for 43 straight hours. I took a flight from Boston through London where I had 12 hours to kill. I decided to go east through London rather than west so I could meet with the publisher of my next book and have lunch to discuss the project. Here is what I can say about London, no offense to our British members. London is expensive, and with the current currency conversion from dollars (about USD$2=1 pound) it is really really expensive. I took a simple commuter train from Heathrow to Paddington station, about a 10-12 minute ride. Round trip, the fare was £31.00 which is about $60. SIXTY FREAKING DOLLARS!! In Boston a cummuter rail run of this length would be around $10. Heathrow is an absolute nightmare. Think 2 hours to get through security (not including check in, add another hour for that) and a solid hour for customs. They do not allow more than one carry on, even personal items. So even though you get on the plane in Boston with two carry ons (i.e. a bag and a personal item like a briefcase or purse), when you get to London, you either stuff one into the other one, or check one and pay extra to check it because they won't let you through security with two. (Meaning, you can't get to the gate, then have them check it for free, you have to go back to check in and check it BEFORE security). They had little old ladies stuffing their purse into their carry on and if it wouldn't fit, tough--check the carry on. But you have to leave security, go back to the check in desk and do it, so they make you pay for it as an extra piece of luggage! They had guys trying to stuff a briefcase into a backpack. This is simply retarded. The rest of the world allows a carry on and a personal item. Not in Heathrow. Period. The only exception is for professional photographers, and only those with credentials from a recognized news agency (which is to say if you work for a British newpaper and can prove it. They were not about to let me get away with it even though I had "proof" that I was a professional photographer, including even a couple copies of my books to show.) When I asked to see a manager (who clearly had the authority to simply wave me through) he absolutely refused to do it, became impatient with me, and finally told me it was my fault (as an American) because all these rules "came from America". I held my tongue and didn't remind him where the stupid shoe bomber originated. On that point, they have a whole special machine for checking shoes. So after you go through the machine that Xrays all your gear, you stand in line again at the shoe scanner. RETARDED. (Sorry I am venting a little because it's theraputic, but I also honestly feel this information will help another traveler.) There are multiple additional randon check points between the security and the plane. If you don't see one and walk by, they scream at you like you are a criminal. If you then stand in every line that looks like you should, they scream at you to keep moving. I'm afraid England is lost. The terrorists have won. Between the Orwellian security cameras and speed cameras on every corner, the ridiculous prices on everything, the taxes, the welfare program, their own little "alien" problem, and the airport, I am SO freaking glad I live in the USA!! Sorry England, but I will never visit again unless I drive there from FRANCE! (I'm taking a whole new view on France these days). I had a so-so flight on Singapore air (the plane, seats, entertainment system and service did not meet up with my expectations and in fact was inferior to Korean Air, Malaysian Air and Virgin Atlantic, all airlines I have flown in the past 2 months). Don't get me wrong, Singapore Air is still far superior to most airlines in the USA with the possible exception of American Airlines (and I can't believe I'm saying that but its true--American ain't bad). Tomorrow I shall fly Silk Air from Singapore to Manado, Indonesia, then journey to Lembeh. Hopefully my next journal entry will be tomorrow night from Lembeh. Signing off for now....  Jonathan 
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#2
10-02-2007, 05:55 AM
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No sleep and that kind of ****  Just think getting underwater at the final end.I visited Moscow last week and this shoe-show is existing there also. I think that best organized airports in Europe are Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Paris and of course Helsinki..for future consideration! We are following your blog, thanks! Jukka
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#3
10-02-2007, 11:31 AM
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Lembeh Blog . . .
Hey Jonathan . . .
Keep up the running trip report and please, feel free to vent all you want. I just learned three valuable lessons from your first installment . . . 1) The whole concept of 1 carry-on and 1 personal item is not happening when traveling abroad (need to meticulously check websites of airports before embarking) 2) Probably a good idea to avoid Heathrow at all costs 3) Lembeh is a b**ch to get to no matter what Safe travels! Hope the rest of the trip turns out much better. P.S. I know hindsight is 20/20, but why Heathrow as a connecting airport? If I'm not mistaken, you can go through Singapore or Kuala Lumpur and get to Lembeh just as easily. I've been through both cities and find their airports to be absolutely wonderful.
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#4
10-02-2007, 11:44 AM
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My comment from the English point of view is the same, Heathrow (and all other London airports) sucks! I fly through London almost every week and it gets me depressed as soon as I leave home or even think about it!
Don't try and bend the rules on one bag, they won't let you through... I have tried! Even if you have a book and a bag... the book has to be packed... absolutely crazy! Anyway, you are over the worst of it and have a great trip... I just hope you are not going home via London...  Andrew
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#6
10-04-2007, 08:13 AM
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I made it!!!!!
Hey gang, the internet is up and down here, so we'll see how I do posting....
Wow, what an amazing day today was!!! But I guess I should start at the beginning. Yesterday I got up and headed to the airport in Singapore with one of the group members David K. and we met up with the rest of our group and boarded the airplane. I got whacked SG$300 (~US$200) for my excess baggage. I have a 50 pound and a 70 pound bag. They only allow 20 kilos on Silk Air (~50 pounds) so I had to pay overweight charges on 30 kilos at SG$10 (Singapore dollars) per kilo. OUCH. I wish I could have checked my bags all the way through. The flight to Manado in North Sulawesi was uneventful on a Silk Air Airbus A320. A nice relatively new plane. Manado is fairly nice, a heck of a lot nicer than a lot of places I have visited! We were picked up at the airport by Rob Sinke from Divers Lodge Lembeh and driven to the coastal town of Bitung, which took a little over an hour. This is a nice clean little coastal town (except for the fishing wharf area) and a pretty busy, hopping little port. We boarded the boats and took about a 30 minute ride to the lodge, which is located on Lembeh Island, rather than the mainland. As there are no roads on Lembeh Island, all the villages can only be accessed by the sea. DLL is located on a hill and they own a huge amount of forest all around the resort, so it is very private and quiet. The bungalows are all built on the hillside in the forest with beautiful (and I mean truly breath-taking) views of the ocean. I really like this place, although it has no AC and that takes a little getting used to for me. At night the temperature is fine for sleeping, but it's still humid. We had some dinner, put cameras together and went to bed. Everyone is pretty out of it because of jet lag. This morning we got up around 6:30 (everyone was awake since 5 AM anyway because of the jetlag) and had breakfast at 7 AM. By 8 we were loading the boats. One of the things I love about this resort is the 2 divers per divemaster rule, which means you have a very small group (3 people) in the water looking for critters. Because this resort only allows 10 people total but has 5 boats, we can have very lightly loaded boats. My group is 9 people, so we put the 3 videographers on one boat so they would be away from our strobe flashes. Then we put 2 divers on another boat with a divemaster, and the other 4 (including me) on the 3rd boat with 2 divemasters. Our divemaster asked us what we wanted to see, so I decided to throw out one of the difficult subjects, a Rhinopias scorpionfish. We went out to the first site (name is escaping me right now) and we dropped into the water. Within 5 minutes we had TWO different species of rhinopias scorpionfish. Unbelievable!! We did 3 dives, each lasting 60-90 minutes, depending on depth, and I shot 307 pictures using my trusty Sigma 50 mm macro lens on my D200 with twin Ikelite DS125s and an Ikelite housing. We had 4 divers on our boat….all using Ikelite SLR housings (3 Nikons and 1 Canon). All functioned flawlessly. We got some amazing pictures…blue ringed octopus, various ghost pipefish, several species of frogfish, including the smallest one I have ever seen, about the size of the nail on my pinky. I saw and photographed so many cool things on the first day that I can say for sure that this is another one of those places that TOTALLY lives up to its reputation. This is muck diving heaven, a macro mecca for sure. I am going to need to toss some crap off this hard drive to have enough space to store all the pictures I'm going to shoot! I'm averaging so far 100 images per dive…and most are keepers. One thing I recommend is using Nitrox here. A lot of the dives are 50-70 feet and you run up nitrogen fast. We all decided to just use air the first day, but we were constantly watching the computers to be sure we didn't go into deco. Tomorrow I expect that everyone will switch to nitrox. Well, I have to run…we decided against our better judgement to do a night dive. I had enough time to type this while I charged some batteries, dump the camera, swap camera batteries and now it's time to head back out!! I'll post this to the website tonight hopefully if the internet is up here. (It is sporadic because they have power outages in Bitung where the internet provider is. Ironically, the power here at the resort is more reliable because they have solar plus two generators. More later and some pics....stand by! Jonathan Last edited by Jonathan Bird : 10-05-2007 at 06:59 AM.
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#7
10-04-2007, 08:33 AM
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100 keepers per dive! Keep us posted, Jonathan. -Clay
__________________
Clay Coleman Photography
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#8
10-04-2007, 09:00 AM
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Here are some shots:
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#9
10-04-2007, 09:06 AM
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A couple more...
I have no time to tweak today, so these are all essentially right off the camera with the default white balance settings, etc.
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#10
10-04-2007, 09:15 AM
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Quote:
You pretty much have to go through Singapore. The question is how many airports do you go through before that? I worked an itinerary that was designed to minimize plane changes and therefore luggage losses. My alternatives in the same price bracket were Boston to NY to Germany to Singapore to Lembeh (3 stops)...or....Boston to NJ to Korea to Singapore to Lembeh (3) stops)....or....Boston to Vancouver to Singapore to Lembeh (except that one involved Northwest and I will avoid them at all costs...they suck!) So I decided that Boston to London to Singapore with a layover to visit my publisher was the best deal. On the plus side, my plan worked, because my luggage made it and I did have a meeting with the publisher and the publisher did give the green light to my next book. It's just that Heathrow SUCKS A@@!! Jonathan
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