Our plan for the day was to find a Weedy scorpionfish – Rhinopias frondosa, in a new dive site called Bethlehem (named to mean BEtter THan LEMbeh). Our dive guide Kennedy did not take long to find it. I think we could have stayed here for while as obviouslly the critters found here are quite promising on the quality of the dive site…and it is not as frequented as Lembeh which starts to look like the Bahamas (ok, not quite, but it’s on the way)
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Despite the plane being one hour late, we were picked up yesterday night at Manado airport by Bob’s friend, Andrew, manager of the newly built Kima Bajo Resort & Spa. He kindly invited us to stay at his resort for the night. The bungalows are resort-style villas with stylish Balinese furnitures with private terrace, outdoor sunken bath and shower. All the resort is made of iron wood that gives a truely unique aspect. The pictures speak for themselves.
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I’m in Balikpapan right now. We arrived this morning from Berau and had tpo pay an excess baggage of 450,000 rupiahs (56kg excess). We checked in for the afternoon in the Grand Senyur hotel (blatant luxury). We’ll be in Manado tonight, so don’t expect any pictures before I get back to France on October 5. Sorry. But it should be worth the wait 
Only Mike and I decided to go for this dive, we left at 7:30AM to try to get the mantas. We got our best dive ever with the mantas. We slowly drifted from the boat to dive within a group and follow slowly the sandy ‘avenue’ by sticking to the bottom. We separated quickly and amazingly met at the same location: a coral head to be used as a shelter to protect us from the current. It was located at where the big sandy ‘avenue’ was splitting in 2 smaller one. The mantas were flying on each avenue and passing over us during more than 30 minutes.
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The hundred mantas were lining again in several small groups. I bumped again into the wounded manta that has 2 hooks in her right wing and a trailing fishing line. I still did not have any knife to attempt some quick line cutting.
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