My underwater photography year 2015

I started the year 2015 in Bangka and Manado, North-Sulawesi, Indonesia on a three weeks trip with Murex Dive Resorts. Bangka is a little quiet island at the northern tip of North-Sulawesi. Located between the most famous and crowded scuba diving destinations Lembeh Strait in the east and Bunaken marine park in the west the are around Bangka island offers some hidden treasures of marine wildlife.

Bangka island

I rarely was diving in areas where on one dive you could experience highest variety of coral, offering scenic wide angle photography opportunities, in combination with a high density of macro wildlife such as several species of pigmy seahorses, ghost pipe fish, and countless species of nudibranch.
The Murex Bangka resort is built in a little bay at a calm white sandy beach surrounded by jungle. The perfect place to indulge into a relaxed island lifestyle.
The last week of our stay we spent at Murex Manado which is a resort to the south-west of the city of Manado. It is a beautiful place built into a overwhelming tropical garden. From there boat trips to Bunaken offering best in class wall dives but also to some of the most famous muck diving places in the area are possible.


North Sulawesi 2014/2015 - Images by Andreas Mueller

MSV Amira

In May 2015 we made another scuba diving trip with MSV Amira in West-Papua, Indonesia. The itinerary of this trip was from Sorong on the West-Papua mainland to the archipelago of Misool and from there following the chain of islands in the east Banda sea towards Saumlaki on the island of Jamdena.
This trip offered scuba diving in very remote places. Given the bad weather conditions we had to spend more days than planned in the Misool area. However, this would bring us to dive spots such ass the sites around Pulau Jef Pele which are not usual destinations on Misool trips. Afterwards we were heading Pulau Koon south east of the island of Seram. And further to Pulau Bui, Pulau Kalbur, Pulau Nitu to reach our final destination the harbour in the bay of Saumlaki on Pulau Jamdena.


Amira: Cruise from Sorong to Saumlaki - Images by Andreas Mueller

SCKA Swimming tournament

I did not only do underwater wildlife photography this year. In November I was shooting the SCKA annual swimming tournament (refer to older post). For the first time I took my underwater equipment along and took some pictures below the surface.
Interesting are  the pictures of the swimming kids turning at the end of the lane either from the side or when approaching from the front.


Underwater images - Images by Andreas Mueller

This was all of my 2015 underwater photography work. I did two more cold water dives in Swiss lakes. One in the lake of Zug and one in the lake Lucerne. But both without a camera.