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Apr 30, 2006 |
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Wow, we've been having some superb dives this month, weather has been perfect and the visibility is back to normal, how about a 102 minute dive in 6mts watching 3 manta rays swoop around us feeding and getting cleaned, then coming in so close they were almost touching us to have a long stare at the strange bubble blowing humans, absolutely fabulous, then we had the dolphins at one site herding the schools of blue fusiliers along with the help of the Giant trevallys, what a sight;o))). A school of huge yellowtail barracuda swimming around us with the leader of the pack a monster of around 1.5mts, lots of octopus and cuttlefish about, Eagle Rays and Mantas at many of the sites and a javanese cownose ray seen in the north with cowtail and porcupine rays also being seen regularly, the Grey sharks seem to have taken up residence at one site and a few bamboo sharks hiding under coral heads, then of course my favourites the nudibranchs still finding ones we haven't seen before and not forgetting the frog fish, 6 being spotted in a day, then a baby painted frog fish black with red spots and white toenails;o)) how cute was that, pink hairy squat lobsters found on a huge barrel sponge. Dolphins everyday showing off at the surface, bottlenose and spinners, sometimes coming in to ride the bow wave at the front of the boat, always a thrill to see. Pygmy seahorses have disappeared from one of their favourite fans not sure what's happened to them;o(
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Mar 29, 2006 |
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Manta watching this months speciality, on many dives just find a comfortable spot and watch the show, moving on only to try to warm up a little with the temp 26-27c. Huge beautiful nudibranch miramosa spotted by Magali at Cannibal Rock photo kindly donated by Julien;o)) Big grey reef shark seen, along with schools of fish being chased by the Giant and Bluefin trevally, with the white tip sharks sneaking in for a bite to eat. Dolphins showing off at the surface;o) Napoleons seem to be in mating mode with the big males flashing their wonderful green/blue plumage to impress the smaller females. Many leaf fish, frog fish and pygmy seahorses found, nurse sharks at Pillarsteen and very nice viz to see the beauty of the site the 3 sisters and her soft coral.
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Feb 27, 2006 |
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Visibility has cleared up tremendously in the North and the South has water temperatures of 27-29 so nice for spending a long time with the critters at Cannibal Rock, more frog fish found and the crazy nudibranchs never end, nice wee winged pipefish spotted by Nurdin under a frog fish. Plenty of Mantas at Manta alley, lovely visibility at 3 Sisters to show off her walls of soft and hard coral. Lots of octopus around the reefs with one putting on quite a show in the shallows as he searched around for a snack. Batu Tiga slowed her raging currents to allow us to marvel at her unbelievable rock formations, as though the earth has exploded with huge chunks of rock forming roads and overhangs, one area you would swear was cut with a huge knife forming a ledge with a perfect vertical wall running along it's edge, the marine life is superb with lots of pelagics and white tip reef sharks, a huge Green turtle rowing past us all, we normally see Hawksbill turtles so it was nice to see a Green for a change, then right down to the wee critters, how they hang on when the current runs I'll never understand. Dolphins coming in to look at our divers in the northern sites on a couple of occasions, with Grey reef sharks popping up to see what all the fuss is about.
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Jan 30, 2006 |
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A lost fishing net was found floating near Rinca after the strong winds we've had over a couple of days and a poor wee turtle was caught up in it, Sissi was able to release the turtle from the net and it swam off quickly into the depths, before pulling the net up out of the water to save any further turtles getting trapped they found a few sargassum frog fish, 2 seahorses and a host of other critters which were shooed off gently before the net was hoisted aboard. The middle of January brought us strong winds and lots of rain, visibility has been reduced but we've still managed to have some great dives. The big school of Golden trevally is back at the lighthouse and the Mantas are parading at Tatawa, a huge Great Barracuda is hanging around in the shallows there, with the barracudas still hanging at Full moon, Siaba and Nidhihang.
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