Life is all about fishing: cast the line, know when a fish tugs, and know when and how to reel it back.

All right... This is long overdue.

First of all, I'm back from my eventful Bali trip, during which we saw 2 mola-molas and a very fat manta.

Oh, do you know what a mola-mola is? It's basically a sunfish. It's a deep water fish that comes up for the sun during the cold season. The mola-mola is not easy to come by though.

What does it look like? A giant fish head with a singular dorsal fin and a singular ventral fin. Honestly, look it up yourself; there's no way I know that will describe it to you. I can only tell you it's 2m from fin to fin. And it really looks like a giant fish head.

Anyway, the first mola-mola was spotted first by my mother, then by me. And while my mum was fiddling around, trying to get her poker out so she could get the attention of other divers, the mola swam toward the reef, past my mother, and hovered under me for a bit. I could see its eyes checking out this strange new creature that had entered its waters. It was really a very pretty mola: smooth and unscathed. It swam back to the deep pretty fast, after the rest of the divers started swimming over. Seeing it swim is most perculiar; the dorsal and ventral fin move in the same direction, and the tail is really useless.

The next dive in the same day honoured us with a muscular, fat manta. 2.5m wingspan. Completely unafraid of divers. It came from the deep, made its way through the divers and up to the reef shallows. There was a net trailing, caught on one of the manta's probocis, but it didn't stop the manta from looking absolutely magnificent.


The following day, the last day of our dives, gave us another mola on our second dive. 2 molas on one trip!! But this one was deep. I didn't go down to the depth of the mola because I felt the water pressure coming on, something I've yet to experience. It turns out I was 36m below the water surface. The mola was somewhere around 50m in depth. Other divers had reached 47m, on par with the mola, or 40m for the more conservative divers. The mola swam out, and was actually going to turn back to the reef, but it was too dangerous a depth to linger. No number of molas are worth getting decompression for.

And then again... depends on who you ask...

In Bali, they have this wonderful thing called Babi Guiling. It tastes like chicken, only tons better. In reality, it's pig. It's a must try, along with their local curry.

Oh ya, forgot to mention this because the molas and the manta overshadowed everything. I saw the biggest moray ever, poking its head out of its hole.


The marine life in Bali are very well-fed.







I'm still procrastinating on various personal projects.




Here's an example of something you really shouldn't try, and need no longer try because I've already tried it.

Adding a pinch of salt to half a can of coke gives a new twist to the taste; but if you put so much as half a teaspoon in, you'll get a drink good enough for a horrible prank.

Also, if you're really going to try adding the non-recommended amount of salt, do it gradually in small amounts. If you put it all in at once, you're going to have a cola-volcano. It's an effervescent reaction.



I'm fishing. And methinks I caught it. A good fish too.