A porcelain crab, Neopetrolisthes ohshimai, in Merten's carpet anemone, Stichodactyla mertensii. The porcelain crab is a shy filter-feeder that uses the stinging tentacles of the anemone for protection. Photograph by Mike Severns.
Author's Dedication
To my editor, David Pickell
He missed out on the fun part of this effort — the diving — and instead struggled behind his computer to whip the book into shape from the mess of my manuscripts.
Essential to this book were the many dive operators, guides and dive buddies who contributed their time and knowledge, and who made certain I stayed out of trouble underwater (and sometimes above). Very special thanks to Easy Ed Donohue, who kept a close watch over me in my PC (Pre-Computer) days. Also to Cody Shwaiko, a close friend and my most frequent dive buddy, who traveled across Indonesia from his home in Bali several times to join me during the research for this book. And to Wally Siagian, who stands head and shoulders above all dive guides, who took me to all the right sites in Bali, and found me a cold beer whenever I could not live without one. And to Loky Herlambang, pioneer dive operator, founder of Nusantara Diving Centre, and conservation prize-winner, who did the same in Manado. And to Edi Frommenwieler, operator of the Pindito and Peter, the dive master, for the best dive series of my life. And to Graeme and Donovan Whitford for their sense of humor and never ending enthusiasm, along with truly world-class diving on Alor. And to Larry Smith, the most professional of instructors/guides, over 11,000 dives under his weight belt, the best of buddies if anything should go wrong. And to my most recent dive buddy, my son Kalman, in the hopes that his interest in marine biology may quickly surpass my own.
Editor's Acknowledgements
Any book of this scope represents the sweat and talent of many people, and an awful lot of both have gone into this one.
The fieldwork for this volume—hundreds of dives, thousands of kilometers of airplane and boat travel, sometimes weeks at a time without a cold beer—was conducted by Kal Muller, a Hungarian-born photographer and writer who has spent some 20 years tromping around the archipelago with his cameras and notebook. Kal is an old friend and probably the most tireless and good-humored person I know. Others who have contributed to this volume:
Dr. Charles Anderson, a marine biologist with the Marine Research Section of the Ministry of Fisheries of the Republic of the Maldives, coauthored the marine life section and updated the practical section for Sumatra.
Cody Shwaiko, an experienced diver living in Bali, provided the Kangean Islands section, parts of the Banda dive narrative, and the sections on Sumba and Sangihe-Talaud. Cody has also provided several interesting photographs.
Dive guide Wally Siagian not only kept Kal out of trouble while he was researching the Bali section of this book, but also provided detailed sketch maps of the Bali and Banda Islands sites, and to this edition, several photographs. Wally, who has an instinct for finding underwater life that is second to none, also pioneered all the best sites around Komodo Island.
Helmut Debelius, founder of the IKAN agency, provided us with his own photographs, as well as those of agency photographers Ed Robinson, Jan Post and Lionel Pozzoli. Helmut also provided a nice anecdote about discovering the beautiful reef lobster that now bears his name.
Photographer Mike Severns, who runs a dive operation in Maui with his wife, marine biologist Pauline Fiene-Severns, provided us with some of his very fine work from North Sulawesi. Mike's most recent book of photographs, Sulawesi Seas, co-authored with Pauline, has garnered widespread praise from both journalists and fellow professionals.
Rudie Kuiter is an experienced underwater photographer and the author of one of the best fish identification guides to the region: Tropical Reef-Fishes of the Western Pacific. Rudie provided an essay on discovering new species and a series of very interesting photographs.
Mark V. Erdmann, a coral reef ecologist who has conducted research in Indonesia for four years, provided the section on South Sulawesi. Mark's primary concern is marine conservation and development, and he has authored several articles on destructive fishing techniques in the archipelago.
Janet Boileau and Debe Campbell, both free-lance writers living in Jakarta, wrote the Java section, and Debe helped update the practical section for Bali.
Andy Udayana, a student at the National Tourism University in Bali also helped update the practical section for Bali.
Lastly, I wrote some of the marine life and background sections, and updated the volume for this printing.
— David Pickell
San Francisco 1998
Two snappers, Macolor macularis, and a cloud of peach anthias and lyretail anthias, Pseudanthias dispar and P. squammipinnis, at Mike's Point, on the northwest corner of Bunaken Island in Sulawesi. This site was named after the photographer. Photograph by Mike Severns.
Introducing the Indonesian Islands
The islands of Indonesia spread in a wide arc, more than 5,000 kilometers long, from mainland Southeast Asia to Papua New Guinea. Dotted with volcanoes, covered with thick tropical vegetation and bright green rice fields, and surrounded by coral reefs, the Indonesian archipelago is one of the world's most beautiful places.
The most reliable figure offered for the number of islands in Indonesia is 17, 508, including rocks and sandbanks exposed by the tides. Some 6,000 of these are important enough to have names, and perhaps 1,000 are inhabited.
Indonesia is the largest archipelagic nation in the world, with at least 80,000 kilometers of coastline. Some estimates run as high as 200,000 kilometers, but even the lower figure makes Indonesia's coastline longer than that of any other nation. The territorial waters of Indonesia include 3.1 million square kilometers of tropical seas.
Indonesia is the world's fourth-largest country, with 204 million inhabitants. Most are Muslims, but there are significant Christian and Hindu minorities. Racially the majority of Indonesians are Malayo-Polynesian, with Chinese and Papuan minorities. The capital and largest city is Jakarta.
The Indonesian language is a variant of Malay, which, in this nation of hundreds of languages, has long served as the lingua franca of trade.
Seafaring Empires
Indonesians refer to their country as tanah air kita—"our land and water"—and have always considered the seas as an integral part of their country. The ancestors of the great majority of Indonesians—the Austronesians—arrived in the archipelago by boat. The invention of the outriggered canoe some 5,000 years ago was as essential a development to seafarers as the wheel was to land-locked people.
Many of Indonesia's 17, 508 islands are graced with beautiful, palm-lined beaches. This is the south coast of Bali.
Spreading first from the Asian mainland to Taiwan, and then— about 3,000 B.C.—through the Philippines and into the larger islands of western Indonesia, the Austronesians brought with them rice and domesticated animals, and thrived on the rich volcanic soil of the Sunda Islands.
But seafaring skills were not forgotten. Starting in the 4th century, Indonesians from south Kalimantan (Borneo) sailed across the Indian Ocean to settle in uninhabited Madagascar, just off the coast of Africa.
The first great Indonesian empire, the Buddhist Srivijaya, was a maritime empire based around the port of Palembang in southeast Sumatra. The Srivijaya controlled the Straits of Malacca, the key to the crucial China-India trade route, from the 7th to the 13th centuries.
Influences from the Asian subcontinent continued to reach the archipelago, which became increasingly Indianized in culture and religion.
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