NAD for those that do not know is a little low key dive resort on the island of Lembeh. It is run by Simon Buxton and Mike Vietch, who are both Wetpixel members and serious about their photography and videography. Lembeh for those that dont know, is the home of muck diving in Indonesia, made famous by some of the strangest looking and behaving critters that have been discovered under the murky waters of the Lembeh Strait.

This was the third trip for me to Lembeh in 5 years, personally I cant get enough of the place. The diving is easy and ranges from a muck ( critter hunt ) on sloping black volcanic sand to diving sites like Angels Window or Nudi Retreat which hosts some of the best soft corals i have seen. If that isnt enough then there are some wrecks that can be dived too. Lembeh seems to have everything , and it is all just a 10 minute boat ride away from NAD.

I have been to NAD on a previous holiday but not whilst Simon and Mike have been managers there. NAD now has a new wet camera room and also a new dry camera/computer room. You just have to look at the towels supplied in the wet camera room to tell that these guys are serious about not just their cameras but serious about the welfare of the guests cameras too. These towels are the softer than the ones supplied in the rooms. Of course it was the ladies that noticed this.

Louise ( my wife ) and I were joined by 4 of our friends for 2 weeks of diving and hopefully some great photographic opportunities. 2 of them had also dived Lembeh before and the other 2 were Lembeh virgins. Now Lembeh I guess is a bit lkike Marmite, you are either going to love it or hate it. Luckily we had 2 weeks there and were able to do a complete mix of diving and not just 2 weeks in the muck. My concerns were put at ease after the first dive with the virgins when the got back on the boat after a 75 minute dive and had the biggest of smiles on their faces. I am not even sure if they realized that seeing 2 mimic ocopus and 1 wonderpus along with frogfish and a couple of varieties of lionfish on just one dive was pretty good going.

Each evening I picked which dive sites we were going to be diving and let the grouop know what we were hopefully going to see and photograph. The guides were very solid and never failed to come up with the goodies, well except the blue ring octopus, but we all know that they are like unicorns and dont exist. The viz was pretty poor, which is common for Lembeh and water temperature was a constant 28c, which felt lovely in a 7mm full suit. The diving consisted of 2 morning dives, an afternoon dive and also a mandarin or night dive. Diving on the house reef was always available and free of charge. We would get up have a breakfast sort our cameras out and get on the boat. The boat was about 40ft long, wooden, with a seating area under cover and also a sundeck for the sun worshippers. More importantly it had 2 good sized rinse tanks for everyones rigs. All of our kit would have been loaded onto the boat and all that was left to do was analize the nitrox and kit up. A dive brifing was given prior to every dive with information on at what depths we would hopefully see each critter. The dives were 75 minutes long unless something special was seen and then they did tend to be 90 minutes long. Everyone was happy with this though as it gave everyone a good chance for photos and videos. After the first dive a hot drink and light snack would be served and then it was time for an hours sunbathiong on the boat before it was time for the second dive briefing. This is such a better idea, the other resort I have dived with in Lembeh go back to the resort after every dive and you seem to be constantly on the move and never feel that you have chilled out.

The food at NAD consisted of a meat dish and also a fish dish, fresh salad, fresh cooked vegetables, fresh fruit and a desert in the evenings. There was nothing served that wasnt tasty. Tea Coffee and cold water was available 24 hours a day.

The hosts Simon and Mike, and unofficially Zee ( Mrs Buxton ), were great fun, and I think they enjoyed our company as much as we all enjoyed theirs. Most evenings consisted of playing some kind of charades game accompanied by a few Bintangs ( beers ). Of course sides generally consisted of ladies against men and it did become quite boring thrashing the women at everything, even though they would cheat as much as they could to try and beat us. Both the lads certainly know what they are talking about when it comes to photography and it was great to learn things from them. A major problem I have struggled with in the past has been lighting and after a few observations by the guys I felt my photos were starting to look better. Whether that was the beer kicking in and affecting my judgement I am not sure.

It was also nice as it always is to meet up with another Wetpixel member for the first time. Wagsy arrived a few days before we left the resort. He is there and has the whole resort to himself. Actually he has the whole o the Strait to himself as there was hardly any other resort boats out diving whiklst we were there. It appears that the world recession is kicking in everywhere.

I will add a few keepers when i get chance.

A BIG thank you to Simon/Mike/Zee and everyone who works for NAD.

Stew

Stew

Hi Stew, nice to hear you're back ok,
Great story and lovely photos

The images look great Stew, congrats of what sounds like a super trip. I'm lovin the light on the seahorse. Did you guys have any travel issues? Great that you got out and back between the volcano doing it's thing.

Cheers,
Steve

Hi Steve, we did have a few issues. we had booked flights with Air Asia to fly from KL to Manado, and a few weeks prior to leaving they cancelled the route. Simon being the helpful guy that he is, managed to get us booked on some flights to Jakarta and then from Jakarta to Manado. Obviously not what we would have chosen to do but we managed to get there and never had our hand luggage weighed which was the biggest issue. Had they weighed Mine and Louises then we would have been about 30kg over between us. The volcanic ash had just about been blown out over the Atlantic the day before we left Heathrow.

Regarding the seahorse, I was very pleased with that one myself, This was with the 10-17mm, 1.4TC and mini Zen dome.

All the best, Stew

Hey Stew, thanks for the kind words and glad to hear you enjoyed your stay here and got some great images to go along with it.

My liver is just starting to recover

Hey Stew, it was nice to meet and dive with all you mob too.
Crop the eyes out of that fist pic so we can see how sharp you nailed the eyes.

Yes it is indeed a very relaxing place to stay at along with very easy relaxed long dives with no young DM or Instructor blasting out dive orders at you.
The guides are all very good.
Mike, Simon, Zee and all their staff do a wonderful job and thanks again for looking after me and taking me diving a few times as well.
Post a video once I got it cut up.

What these!!!!



stew

there are a few more images here now. i will get my bum into action and get the rest of them up onto Flickr this weekend.

FLickr

Stew

hey stew!

fantastic pics.

it may be a bit off topic, but can you tell me how you guy's manage to have those black backgrounds? is it editing (PS) or any combination with strobe/exposure/aperture?

Very, very nice. Were you snooting?

Tim