When I got up on Saturday morning and heard the rain on the metal roof of our house, I knew all was not well. We seem to be curiously blessed with an abundance of sunny Saturdays – even during the rainy season, of which we are in the middle.

I left my gear at home and went over to the dock to see if anybody would show up for a dive. A couple of hardy friends did show up, so we were off to Barracuda Point at Pig Island to check the conditions.

A current was raging. Since there were only two of us diving, we decided to swim for it.

At first, there didn’t seem to be much to see. All the fish were elsewhere. I fiddled with some bubbles and a Semperina fan coral:
Getting into the coral now, I shot this image of an Acabaria fan coral. If you click to enlarge, you can see the individual polyps:

This Ctenocella coral is a beautiful red colour and sways grasslike in the current:

I don’t know the identity of this sponge, but it is an example of how we often see one sponge growing on another. The tan coloured sponge appears to have a red encrusting sponge growing on parts of its surface:

Finally, some fish life! This baby Blue-Spotted Stingray (Dasyatis kuhlii) was hiding under a ledge. He is only about the size of a dinner plate:

I caught these Reticulated Dascyllus (Dascyllus reticulatus) hiding in their favourite coral (Seriatopora hystrix):

Here is a YouTube shot of the Dascyllus reticulatus swimming around a Acropora hyacinthus (I think!) coral:
The video quality is not as good as the original. I’m still trying to figure out how to get the best quality on YouTube. You can get the idea, anyway.

Finally, here is another shot of a White Bonnet Anemonefish (Amphiprion_leucokranos):

In approximately 2,000 dives in the area, this is only the second time that I have seen this species.  Given that all Anemonefish have a free-floating larval stage that must find an anemone in order to survive, it isn’t surprising that they may suddenly appear in places where they were not previously found.

As you can see from the photos lately, I’m having some trouble with my new WordPress site. I liked the way the old one worked – the photos were full size and centred. Hopefully when my web magic man gets finished, the images will look the way they did. Otherwise, I’m pretty happy with the way it’s working.

If anybody in North America or Europe notices that the site loads faster, please leave a comment to let me know.

After about 2,000 dives within about twenty minutes of my house, you’d expect that there is not much out there that I haven’t seen before. However, yesterday, on our regular Saturday dive, we went to Barracuda Point and I got a photo of an Anemonefish that I have not seen before.

Here is a White-Bonnet Anemonefish (Amphiprion leucokranos):

It’s not particularly stunning, compared to the colours of many other Anemonefish species, but it’s interesting to me, since I’ve never seen one before.

A fish species that I’ve seen many times before are these two large Angelfish. I don’t have my fish book here at the office, so I can’t be sure, but I think it’s called the Regal Angelfish.  UPDATE:  They are the Six-banded Angelfish (Pomacanthus sexstriatus). They are usually very skittish and difficult to photograph – you simply can’t get close enough:

The prize image of the day is this snap of a Clown Triggerfish (Balistoides conspicillum):

They are usually found rather deep and are extremely shy. The one above was keeping just out of range of my camera when suddenly he decided he wanted to go the other direction. As he hurried past me I panned the camera and snapped blind. I didn’t even know If I’d gotten an image at all until I loaded it onto my computer.

A more mundane image is this little huddling of tunicates. My brain is a little funny today, so it makes me think of a small hamlet of huts in a alien landscape:

Who or what lives in them? Are the big ones on the rich side of town? Aliens seem to be a lot on my mind lately. I wonder if that means anything? Maybe I’m going senile.

I like the fractal-like pattern in this colourful image of plate coral:

I haven’t mentioned it before, but the images that you get when you click to enlarge are usually 1280 x 960 pixels. That’s just about perfect for a screensaver or desktop background. If any of my images strike your fancy, please feel free to use them for your own personal computer. The terms of my copyright allow that sort of personal use without notification or attribution. If you pass something along to a friend, please include the address of Madang – Ples Bilong Mi, so I can have the chance of picking up another reader.

I took these two sky shots yesterday just because I was looking for a new desktop background:

I’m using one of them at my office now.