The Underwater Realm of Manado Bay through diver's eye
Globally-renowned for its vast underwater vistas and stunning marine biodiversity, the Indonesian archipelago, made up of over 17,000 islands stretching across three time zones, offers sports divers amazing and eternally-varied panoramas. In fact, it is estimated that the 110,000km of coastline bordering the shallow seas of the Sunda and Sahul tectonic plates contain the greatest amount of marine life to be found anywhere on the planet. Among the most favored sites for sports divers, Manado and Northern Sulawesi attract marine enthusiasts from around the world. Diving sites in Bitung, carefully maintained and protected by the Indonesian Government, offer unrivaled Neptunian vistas for the photographer. In this new coffee-table publication by the husband-and-wife team of Arief Yudo Wibowo and Jilmi Astina Anif, the two accomplished diver/photographers present an aesthetic experience of beauty and surprise, capturing with their cameras the unspoiled wonders of the shallow bay off Manado, one of the northernmost cities of the archipelago. Two years of preparation and effort, and a total of 378 dives, yielded a mass of photographic documentation, from which was distilled the photographs in this volume. In the words of the authors, "We want this book to serve as a reference for people diving in Manado Bay, and a documentation of the marine biota found on the 22 dive sites along its coast." A brightly-colored, alien world shines through these pages, reminding us of the need to preserve and protect Indonesia's marine wonders.