Seeing the Underwater Volcano

Recently, a number of sites and blogs discussing the crowded local and foreign submarine volcano findings giant Indonesian joint team of geological experts, the United States, and France in the waters southwest of Sumatra.

Awe all at once anxious discussion in the virtual world coloring it. Understandably, we are more accustomed to seeing a picture of mountains on the mainland, such as time of Mooi Indie landscape painting.

As an archipelagic country located in the confluence of three major earth's crust, namely the Eurasian Plate, the Pacific, and Indo-Australia, along the Indonesian archipelago contains a series of volcanoes on land or beneath the sea surface.

From some research and marine survey, the majority of volcanoes that have been detected at a depth of tens of thousands of kilometers so that can only be dived with the help of specially-tech equipment.

Among the many volcanoes there are two mountains that are in fairly shallow waters. One of them Mahengetang Island, Sangihe, North Sulawesi. Mid-May and then in a short visit, I had time to watch this unique natural formations.

Banua Wuhu, so local people call the mountain, located only 300 meters from the southwest side Mahengetang Island. Point marked by the release of a mountain crater bubbles in between the rocks at a depth of eight meters. Average water temperature is 37-38 degrees celsius there. In a number of holes, the hot water out seem to be able to make their bare hands blistered if you dare dug into it.

I only had time to dive two times here. First, because too late, has been rising tide and currents strong enough. The next day we went down just as the flow of death, namely the period between the turn of the tide and low tide. At that time we can explore the topography of Wuhu Banua hills and valleys form a large pile of rocks. Marine life is also not less interesting, dense colonies of coral reefs and healthy lay at a depth of 10 meters to 20 meters.

It is said that there is a see-through underwater tunnel in both directions. Local people held a ceremony tulude each end of January. Two weeks before the ritual, an indigenous elder will dive with a white plate of gold into the hallway as an offering to Banua Wuhu not wrath.