Do we want to go muck diving?

We're looking at doing a trip to the Far East and Lambeh strait is known for muck diving - as are other areas. I viewed a few videos, and it seems like muck diving has certain properties:

1) small creatures
2) hard to find without a guide or experience
3) you need great buoyancy control

Anyway I was just wondering what muck diving is all about and whether we want to begin to pursue this activity. Is much current typically involved? We're novice divers with about 100 dives each.

Thanks,

Bill

It's not my cup of tea, but then I'm not a photographer. I was lucky enough to go on one of the last trips of the Paradise Sport in PNG, and the trip was about 1/2 muck, 1/2 reefs. The photogs loved the muck, I was "meh". I loved the reefs. Pretty fish and coral never lost their allure for me.

Muck diving is about fantastic critters, and if you are going to one of the resorts at Lembeh, the guides will be VERY good at finding them and pointing them out to you. Our dive briefings at KBR included diagrams that showed where some of the neat stuff was going to be seen, and they were right!

If you are a "big picture" kind of person, who enjoys just scanning over a landscape of beautiful, colorful reef, it's not for you. And YES, you need buoyancy control AND non-silting propulsion to do it well (it was very familiar to me, being extremely similar to our diving at home, only warmer).

We spent five days in Bunaken, diving massive walls covered in color, and five days in Lembeh doing muck diving, and if I could only go back to do one, it would be Lembeh.

Muck diving is largely macro diving which means small creatures. That is not to say that you will always need a magnifying glass to spot them, but what you do need though is patience, good buoyancy (though I would say that good buoyancy is always important no matter where you dive), an interest in actively looking for things and a good dive guide. There are a lot of critters like octopuses or frogfishes that are a decent size but difficult to spot due to their ability to blend in with their surroundings.


Lembeh Strait is known for muck diving, sandy bottom and critter hunting. Notably lacking in schooling fish at most dive sites, there are however a number of sites with healthy corals. Here at Lembeh Resort, weather permitting, our dive center also offers day trips to Bangka (an area known for its clear water, schooling fish and lovely coral), should you want to explore outside the Strait and experience something different.


Critter diving / muck diving is also great for photography. If this is something you've been curious to try, even if you don’t have any equipment, our in-house Photo Pro can set you up with a rental camera, housing and strobes.


If you’re wondering what muck diving is about and will be in this part of the world, and cool weird creatures interest you, then I think you should check out Lembeh Strait. Everyone has different preferences, so why not find out for yourself?

Bill,

My wife and I have made three (?) dive trips to Southeast Asia, and if we were to repeat any, Lembeh would be at the top of our list. We are not photographers, we do not have perfect buoyancy. But it was like diving in a fish museum--not like the proverbial aquarium but rather a museum. The DM would take us from one patch of black sand to another, pointing out one "exhibit" after another. Truly critters we had only seen in books and magazines. Amazing.

Muck diving tends to attract a certain type of underwater photographer …. usually an addict.

Lembeh is the current Mecca for muck diving but it does exist elsewhere, my local site is called Car Cemetery on the east coast of UAE.

Sure it is nice to dive in clear waters with masses of colourful corals but muck diving is like uncovering secrets and finding strange critters that some sci-fi writers would be hard pressed to come up with.

My mates told me that if I want to go BACK to Lembeh leave them OUT. They hate it!!!!
Macro is NOT everyone cup of tea.
However, do try it and make your own conclusion. It is your holiday afterall.

Not all of the dive sites at Lembeh are muck diving ... but if muck diving isn't your cup of tea, I'd highly recommend Raja Ampat.

At Lembeh you'll see beautiful, small and exotic creatures in a setting which is often limited visibility and not a whole lot of color ... there are a number of excellent resorts to choose from on both sides of the straits, and most dive sites are a short ride from just about any of them.



... at Raja Ampat you'll be in a far more remote area with pristine reefs, lots of schools of fish, and some larger critters ... I stayed at a resort (Raja4Divers) which was excellent, but most folks prefer seeing Raja Ampat from a liveaboard. Dive sites are remote, spread out, and there's almost nothing out there except a few small islands.



You don't go to either of these places for anything other than diving ... take your extracurricular entertainment with you ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Good thread. We are planning to go to Indonesia again this summer around the Manado area. We would like to at least try out 1 day at Lembeh to see what muck diving is all about. The rest of the time will probably be spent at Bunaken.

Bob, what do you mean by "You don't go to either of these places for anything other than diving ... take your extracurricular entertainment with you ..."?
We have some Indonesian friends who are showing us around and have nothing but good things to say about this area, not only for diving.

Can someone please define muck diving for me? I keep hearing it, but unsure of the actual meaning lol.