The Henry Leith – A Ghost Ship
On Saturday, we motored up to Wongat Island in our dive boat, Faded Glory. There are two world-class dives there within a couple of hundred metres of each other. One is the B-25 Mitchell bomber, The Green Dragon. The other is a scuttled cargo vessel, The Henry Leith. Bob Halstead bought the wreck for K1.00 and sank it as a diving attraction. It’s beautifully preserved. I believe that a clever student could probably work up a Doctoral thesis in Marine Biology without ever leaving the thirty-four metre length of this beautiful ghost ship.
I have been stalking a critter for a good specimen shot for about ten years. It is very elusive and quite rare. Near Madang, The Henry Leith is the only place that I can guarantee that you might see one. For now, I’ll call it the “Mystery Fish.” That’s because I want to see if anybody is paying attention. The first person to leave a comment with the correct common and taxonomic name of this fish, based only on this partial view, wins a prize. The prize is that you get to be first:
Yes, I’m cheap. What did you expect, a Rolex?
In the next couple of days, I’ll be showing you the shots that I’ve been trying to get for over ten years.
Here’s another difficult fish to photograph. It’s commonly known as a Trumpet Fish, but you can call it Aulostomus chinensis if you like:
They constantly try to hide from you in very curious ways. They assume odd positions. I was upside down with salt water gushing into my sinus cavities, nearly dying to sneeze, when I got this shot. UW photographers have to take risks for their prizes. You can see the railing of The Henry Leith upside down at an odd angle. Possibly predators have difficulty matching memory-stored food images up with objects in the water if they are in unexpected configurations. That’s my utterly unscientific guess.
This is a lovely, snowflaky, starry coral which I am pretty sure is the Pipe Organ Coral (Tubipora musica). For once the taxonomic name makes sense, if you remember your High School Latin (yes, I am that old):![Pipe Organ Coral (Tubipora musica) [uncertain]](http://www.messersmith.name/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/pipe_organ_coral_tubipora_musica_IMG_2584.jpg "Pipe Organ Coral (Tubipora musica) [uncertain]")
I said that I’m pretty sure about the identification. There are quite a few corals that have a similar appearance. I forgot to look at the base of this one, so I’m thinking it may possibly be some Anthelia species, which are very variable.
And now, would you care to venture a guess as to what this is? I bet that most people would be able to identify this as the eyes of a stingray which is hiding just beneath the sand. This is why they are troublesome to divers. You often cannot see it easily until you have already frightened it and it escapes. That’s when the stinger is most likely to get you.
As I approached this one he began to rise up slowly in preparation for flight:
A second after this shot, there was nothing left in the camera frame but swirling sand.
SITE NOTES: I’m hoping that you will find that Madang – Ples Bilong Mi is loading much faster. I’ve reduced the eqo-stroking clutter in the side bar – the locations of our visitors and a visitor live feed. I’ve also dumped a few plugins that made calls to third-party sites and slowed things down. There are now seven pages on HOME instead of fifteen. I hope that this improves the experience for everyone. I’m also not bothering to link to every phrase or word on which I have posted before. I know that I’m supposed to do that to keep people from drifting off to some other site. However, for dedicated readers wanting to see what else I’ve written before on a given subject, use the Search box, or click on the title of the post that you want to read and you will get a “single” page with that post and up to seven related posts listed beneath. Remember also that you can “Click a Tag” in the sidebar to see all posts to which I have added that tag.
Related posts:
- Fooling Fish on the Henry Leith Fooling fish into posing for photos on The Henry Leith at Wongat Island near Madang, Papua New Guinea. Jan Messersmith - author, photographer, Divemaster....
- Henry Leith and the Green Dragon No, it's not a fantasy story. We enjoyed a great double dive on The Green Dragon B-25 bomber and The Henry Leith, a coastal freighter near Madang, PNG....
- Stingray Magic Dive The Henry Leith near Madang, Papua New Guinea for a little Stingray Magic....
- Stingray Panic We went out for a dive yesterday on the Henry Leith just west of Wongat Island. We always like to start out by going around the ship on the bottom to look for stingrays. We found several yesterday. Here’s one – a Blue-Spotted Stingray (Dasyatis kuhlii). (click on it for...
- Underwater Miscellanea – Yet Again Today I had to dig into my library to find some images. I'll mix it up and show you fresh ones, some from years ago. You haven't seen any of these yet....
- Weirdness at Wongat Island We treated ourselves to a mid-week dive yesterday afternoon. In fact, we did two separate dives on one tank each. We went to the Green Dragon B-25 bomber first and then to the wreck of the Henry Leith, both near Wongat Island. The water was very murky around the bomber,...
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Hey MadDog! First, love dem fishies! I have no idea who your first one is, though it sure is handsome with that white body and color swirls. Hidden in that vegetation, it sure does look illusive. That’s a great shot of the trumpet fish…and looking at its tail, I recall your remark about how many fish do what that amazing caterpillar does…this sure is a great example. Always love your corals, and the stingray shot is cool…it’s funny, I can never see one now without thinking of the loss of Steve Irwin….you be careful with these guys!
Finally, I think your “cleaned up” site looks great, and I it does seem that everything works more crisply. The images load in a flash on my iMac. Nice work!
Btw, we went back on Standard Time last night…and I woke up, happily, to find I had an “extra” hour…which is silly, if you *really* think about it….have a good week, mate!
I’m glad to hear from someone that the site is loading faster. It seems much faster here, but that doesn’t always translate.
I was going to mention Steve Irwin, but I think that the world is ready remember the lesson and move on. The family certainly has. I’m as careful as I can be and still get the shots. I don’t lead a risk-averse life.
Time never changes here. It’s Paradise.
Had more time today to move around your site, and can confirm my first impression — definitely *way* more responsive than before….great job!
I know you’re careful, and at a profound level, “no risk” would mean “no life,” and neither of us are about that!
I’m glad to hear that. The most common complaint that I’ve heard is that it took too long to load. We’re used to that here, where “broadband” is just a foriegn word.
My wife and I both used to take crazy risks. I remember that last time we went caving she rappelled down about 20 metres into a sinkhole, crawled through the cave with us and climbed out hand-over-hand without a belay. She was four or five months pregnant at the time.
I’m a big fan of Kurt Vonnegut’s earlier work. I like one quotation in particular: “I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.”
Now are risks are “calculated”.
Whoa, Eunice is a most remarkable woman — and no doubt, given this and other posts, you are most blessed to have such a partner!
One of my “to dos” is to learn more about Vonnegut…..love the quote. Of course, if you do fall over some “cliff,” enjoy the view on the way down!
Your cliff references got me thinking about something one of my Zen teachers wrote that takes this thread nearer “the edge,” or perhaps even over the cliff. As usual, it’s a koan – no answer, just one more questions that asks, “What will you do with your heart.”
There is an old story about the person being pursued through the jungle by a fierce tiger. She runs as far as she can until she reaches a huge precipice—there is nowhere left to run. She spots a slim vine and, holding onto it, climbs over the edge of the cliff, inching down as far as she can go. She looks up and sees the tiger, drooling at her hungrily. She looks down and sees another tiger waiting beneath, licking its chops. Then she notices that, just out of reach, two little mice are gnawing contentedly on the vine that is her only lifeline. At that moment, she notices, just to her left, another little vine with a strawberry growing on it. She reaches over, plucks the strawberry, pops it into her mouth—and it tastes so sweet! This is the end of the story as it’s told, and is in a sense what every dilemma demands. Yet, we then take that and ask, “Well, where is my strawberry?” We see the tigers, the mice, the life-and-death peril, the angry spouse, the bills, the arthritis—and we want the strawberry!
No one can give us that. No one can tell us. Yet what we are seeking so desperately has never been absent. It’s not just about you and the taste of that sweet fruit. There is someone turning to you each moment and saying, “I can’t taste it. I can’t feel it. I don’t understand. Please, help me.” What will you do?
I’d be so pathetic without my partner that I’d probably just evaporate. I like a verse in a Paul Simon song, Slip Slidin’ Away:
I know a man
He came from my home town
He wore his passion for his woman
Like a thorny crown
He said Dolores
I live in fear
My love for you’s so overpowering
I’m afraid that I will disappear
That’s, pretty much me.
The first half of Vonnegut’s work was gut-wrenching. After Breakfast of Champions, I dropped out – just couldn’t get into it. Start with Player Piano and read until you’re bored. Don’t miss Slaughterhouse 5.
The older I get the more I keep going back to the basics. You know that I’m a Christian. However, I remember great truths from my Buddhist period. The Four Noble Truths taught me that desire is ultimately a bummer. The less I want, the less I’ll likely suffer. I’m simplifying my life dramatically. Having no money helps, but it goes further than that.
By the way, I wanted to do your ladybugs and clouds shots, but when I downloaded them and ran them throught Photoshop I got “program error” messages from PS, so I couldn’t do anything with the. Want to try again? I have the lizard. I’d like to have the cloud shot with the pine trees and the ladybugs.
Love Slip Slidn’ Away…my wife and are both huge Paul Simon fans (also S&G)…and like you, I can’t imagine life without my dear soulmate….
Back to the basics is good….and yes, know you’re a Christian and totally respect and honor that….and glad you had a “Buddhist period”
some truths are just universal……desire is….interesting…..simplistically, yes, it’s the cause of suffering, and yet, the Buddha actually showed how to hitch your wagon to right desires and qualities like compassion and sympathetic joy with others…..desire has kicked my butt my whole life (whose butt hasn’t it kicked?)….I fought it as a mighty spiritual warrior, and got my lance and visor handed to me….thankfully, I’ve learned how to sit down with desire and deal with it another way…didn’t Jesus say, “Resist not evil?” I don’t imagine he was telling us to indulge evil and compromise with it….so, my dear Christian friend, we are both learning non-resistance, I imagine. 
I’ll re-send those images…thanks for wanting to give them another shot, amigo MadDog!
Drat! Looks like I forgot to close an bracket for the italics! Pooh! All my nuances just drowned in a flood of itals!