Stonner’s Pet Shrimps

The youngest member of Maluku Divers’ dive guide team has beautiful, dreamy eyes laced with lush eyelashes adorned on a boyish face that would melt any girl’s heart. But his charm is not limited to young girls; his quiet, humble demeanour finds its way into the hearts of our divers too.

But to attribute his popularity among our guests at Maluku Divers to his good looks would be to underestimate his prowess in critter-hunting. In the last 10 days during Bob and Jayne Bruner’s umpteenth stay at Maluku Divers, Stonner held the highest record of bagging tiger shrimps, bumble bee shrimps, hairy shrimps and elusive boxer crabs—all high on muck lovers’ wish list. His success rate was so high that Bob and Jayne said they had to exercise more than a little self-restraint not to appear too excited after their dives so that “we can keep Stonner as our guide.”

Most divers arrive at Maluku Divers with a wish list of critters , but as Bob and Jayne have visited so many times, it’s often a challenge to find something new on each occasion and frequently fish and critter ID books are used in the search for new and interesting subjects. During one such browsing session, Stonner saw Jayne’s interest in tiger shrimps, and, using just the habitat as a guide, found two specimens on the very next dive. These critters are pretty small, and with the usual generous helping of humour, Bob revealed “Stonner has dug out some wonderful creatures for Jayne that they both have enjoyed seeing after editing.”

Stonner (yes, this is the name given by his father) Dolongseda was born on the island of Sangihe in north Sulawesi 25 years ago. Shortly after his family moved to Lembeh where Stonner eventually found employment as a boat crew in Thalassa Dive Center in Manado at 19 years old. Since then, he has guided muck divers to many of the region’s best muck sites, such as Lembeh Straits, Togian islands, North Maluku, and now, Ambon.

First here as a temporary replacement in October 2010, Stonner showed himself to possess keen eyes for the smallest critters and good interpersonal skills. As Maluku Divers was looking to boost its dive team in anticipation of more divers discovering about Ambon after its opening in Laha in 2009, Stonner was readily recruited. Although he is the youngest among the four dive guides in the team, it didn’t take him long to prove himself to be a good teamworker and to be accepted by his seniors. Other than English, Stonner is also adept at speaking Italian, and so he is always the dive guide of choice for our Italian guests, such as Marco and Donatella Boncompagni, who were full of praise for Stonner during their stay here in May last year.

Jayne is happy to share the photos taken last week of the three ‘holy grails’ of muck diving that Stonner found for her in Ambon bay. Enjoy the pictures, and be sure to book your next muck dive trip to Ambon, and don’t forget to request a dive with the dreamy eyed critter hunter, Mr Stonner!