The underwater world of scuba diving is supposed to be an endless vista of tropical and pelagic fish swimming amidst colorful corals. It’s a magical, weightless drift in warm gentle currents, exploring interesting overhangs or swimthrough reef walls.
Why would anyone descend to a measly depth of 20 to 30 feet in yucky water filled with stinging hydroids, and God knows what else, to scan a bottom covered with junk and scattered trash, a dozen varieties of empty bottles of beer, old fishnets and bamboo traps and discarded rice bags? Scuba diving in murky water doesn’t make sense. Surely, this wouldn’t appeal to any wall cruisin’, big-animal-loving diver, especially one like me.
The truth is that muck diving is scuba’s hottest new adventure. Experts flock to Indonesia’s West Papua and Sulawesi’s Lembeh Strait, the latter renowned for its silt black-lava sand and low-visibility diving. They go to discover species they have never seen, some of which have not yet been identified.
Muck diving can be simply defined as exploring a landfill filled with the world’s most incredible creatures. West Papua and Lembeh Strait might be considered the muck capitals of the underwater world. In a single dive, a person can imagine that this is as fascinating as diving can be.
About 30 years ago, dive icon Bob Halstead coined the phrase “muck diving” after diving Papua New Guinea’s Milne Bay. Having fun while burning off his nitrogen-loaded body chemistry accumulated from deeper reef dives, Halstead began to discover weird critters in the shallow water.
Muck first attracted photographers, and as more species were discovered, it became the rage. Mile-wide Lembeh Strait, which lacks the deep reefs of other dive destinations, put muck diving on the international map. The most jaded diver, one who has “been there and seen that underwater,” will agree that the residents in the muck can just plain “knock your dive booties off.”
I had no idea of the diversity and variety last year’s diving trip from Ambon to Sorong in West Papua ( formerly Irian Jaya) would offer, not to mention the interesting shore excursions, including the region where, in 1961, the late Michael Rockefeller, the youngest son of then New York Governor Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller and Mary Todhunter Rockefeller, disappeared (presumably drowned) during an expedition.
Flamboyant, mating cuttlefish were oblivious to the 18 voyeuristic scuba divers back rolling into Laha Bay, a harbor which, coincidentally, serves as Ambon’s garbage dump. Although muck diving is typically done in an underwater “landfill” environment, the amount of floating surface garbage was disgusting. Putting aside that thought and trying not to swallow any water, beneath the surface, the variety and number of critters were amazing.
Similar to Lembeh Strait’s renowned muck diving, Ambon’s tepid 84-degree water temperature offers better visibility, with depths averaging around 50 to 75 feet. Soft and hard corals attach themselves to underwear, tires, shoes, bottles, batteries and other garbage. Part of the visual overload included devilfish, waspfish, leaf scorpionfish, many species of lion fish, sea moths, colorful nudibranch and octopuses of various sizes and species, plus schools of upright swimming razorfish. Instead of appearing for their typical dusk mating ritual behind coral outcroppings, colorful mandarin fish swam in open water. The nook of a boulder served as a nest for transparent juvenile flounders. Amorous snowflake eels intertwined. A diver could easily fill pages of a log book, there was that much to see on just one dive.
The year before, I had visited North Sulawesi’s Kungkungan Bay Resort, on Lembeh Strait. The resort can be considered Indonesia’s “muck headquarters.”
Until 1990, it was a coconut plantation. When America’s Supercuts heiress Kathryn Ecenbarger cruised through the strait, she found the place so beautiful, she mentioned to ship Captain Billy Matindas that the bay should be developed as a resort. He offered to help arrange for her to buy the land.
In 1991, Ecenbarger sent her son, Mark, a contractor, to build a resort. Mark was a diver, but after one look at the muck and poor visibility, he was not motivated to get wet. As time passed, he felt frustrated waiting for building materials to arrive. He descended into the
strait and began discovering creatures he couldn’t identify in any book. The realization hit him that Lembeh diving was unique. Three years later, a simple resort became a first-class dive operation, a destination attracting worldwide experts.
At one dive site, showy pygmy cuttlefish camouflaged themselves in gorgonians. A newborn, recognizable only by its shape and color changes, clung to a soft coral. Talk about underwater sensory overload! And there was much, much more.
Several times, our group took advantage of nighttime explorations to see fully exposed flat-headed stargazers, the frizzy “bad hair day” bright-orange hirsute hairy frogfish and other nocturnal critters. Another night it was a crabfest — an orange and purple decorator crab carrying a live urchin. Even a red octopus showed itself.
We also learned an entire new underwater sign language. A curled index finger signaled a seahorse, or a curled pinky indicated a pygmy seahorse. Two-handed index finger wiggles meant a fingered dragonet.
Frog fish have different color phases during their life. We saw yellow, white, green, orange, pink combined with brown and black. Some of them were as small as a lime, others as big as a football. A pregnant female, her belly bulging, hung near her mate on an abandoned anchor line.
Fire urchins used their two white-fronted legs to march like an army battalion in unison along the sandy bottom. This was certainly not a good place to lose control of your buoyancy. Spiny devilfish, sea moths and fingered dragonets were so ugly, one wondered who would prey upon them.
An octopus took refuge in an empty bottle. Striped zebra crabs fed on dead urchins. Two Pegasus sea moths crawled along the black sand. Banded coral shrimp scurried about openly. Golden bristle fireworms crawled through the sand, and soft-shelled clams used banded tentacles for swimming. The long spines of the Venus comb murex shell were stunning.
Never thought I’d say this about muck diving, but Indonesia’s was a highlight of my three decades of underwater adventures.
If you go, Singapore is the gateway to Manado, Indonesia. Divers can fly nonstop on Singapore Air from LAX.
Kungkungan Bay Resort (KBR) is located near Bitung City in Indonesia’s North Sulawesi. Isolated and literally at the end of the road, its 17 bungalows are bordered by tropical rainforest and surrounding coconut plantations. Visit www.kungkungan.com for more information.
Bali is the gateway for West Papua diving. There are several regional airlines that fly to Sorong, Ambon or to whatever island you choose, where you can board one of many liveaboard dive boats.
DL Mary L. Peachin is a native Tucsonan. She is author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Sharks, Scuba Caribbean and Sport Fishing in the Caribbean (University Press Florida, 2010). Comments for publication should be addressed to letters@desertleaf.com.