Since my good dive buddy Richard Jones got bent a while back he has not been able to dive, until recently. He finally got an insurance company to cover him down to 18 metres. So, when we go diving, we stay shallow and enjoy the best that the reefs have to offer. This is good news all around. Rich is back in the water, we are more or less confined to the best part of the reef for photography and Rich has eyes like an eagle.

Rich and I have had some great diving adventures together and I’m so glad to have him back on Faded Glory.  He also has just purchased a Canon G11 and housing, so I’m expecting that a competition will soon begin. He is a nudibranch freak. Get ready for a steady diet of rare nudis. Yum, yum.

Here’s a shot of Rich on our first cooperative, “I spot, you shoot.” dive:

Notice him giving me the “come hither” signal.

The first thing that we saw when we got off of the boat in pretty miserable conditions, with dirty fresh water from the Gol Gol River  over us was this lumbering Sea Cucumber (Thelenota ananas):Pretty is not a word that I would use to describe these alien critters.

I think that this must be some kind of algae, although the colour looks highly improbable:It really is as purple as it looks. It waves around in the current like silky hair. I thought that there was a slim possibility that it was a clutch of nudibranch eggs, but nothing that I can find matches it. After Googling for a few minutes, I gave up. Anybody have a better idea? I also tried “purple marine algae”, but no luck.

We see giant Barrel Sponges all the time. However, we seldom see small ones. It’s the old, “Where are the baby pigeons?” question. Here is a shot of a very young Barrel Sponge (Xestospongia testudinaria):It is only about the size of your fist. The big ones can be the size and weight of a Volkswagen. There is a Squirrelfish or Soldierfish of some kind peeking at me from below the ledge. I can’t see enough of the body to identify it.

This poor crab was somebody’s dinner. All that’s left of him is one claw:It’s amazing that we see so little evidence of the nightly carnage on the reef.

I snapped this quick shot as a school of Narrow-Stripe Fusiliers (Pterocaesio tessellata)  with one Blue and Yellow Fusilier (Caesio teres)  flashed past me. It’s a credit to the G11, not to me, that the image came out looking as good as it does:Not a wall hanger, but you can identify the fish.

Finally, here is a nasty-tempered Moray Eel (Gymnothorax javanicus):This grumpy customer kept sticking his toothy face right out at me. If he looked as if he were going to bite, I’d just bump his nose with my camera, not hard, just enough to make his teensy-weensy brain reboot. He’d pull back in his hole and sulk for a few seconds and then peek out again. No harm – no foul.

I know that I’m going to get bit some day. Ah, well, a few more scars. It just adds to the legend (in my head).

At Planet Rock yesterday the water was full of particulate matter and not much fun for taking pictures. Therefore, we had to do everything up close.

I did manage one nice Big-Eyed Trevally shot at a distance of about one metre, but I had to clean up many specks to make it usable:

There’s even a Bluefin Trevally at the bottom of the frame.

One thing that I love to do at Planet Rock at the end of a dive, when we’re just using up our air, is to turn over some small rocks to expose the organisms on the undersides and watch the feeding frenzy of fish coming in to gobble up the tender morsels that are usually inaccessible to them. It must be like a trip to the ice cream shop:

I count six different species (some partially obscured) feeding in an area the size of a large beach ball.

We spotted this small moray eel in a crevice:

Anthea are difficult to photograph. They are small. They move constantly. They run away from you. They are just generally uncooperative. This is one of the best Anthea shots that I’ve yet managed:

The larger one with the purple is the male. He’s guarding his harem.

The Checkerboard Wrasse is, I think, one of the prettiest fish in the local waters. This is the best shot I’ve gotten of one:

I got it by the “Turn the Rocks Over and Wait” method.

Here’s another wrasse, the name of which escapes me at the moment. It’s rare to capture a photo of a fish actually feeding. I’ve seen it many times, but it happens so quickly that you can never get a picture.

This wrasse is just about to grab a tidbit from a small stone that I’ve just flipped over:

Water clarity is wildly variable here, because we have so many huge tropical rivers dumping sediment and stuff you don’t even want to think about into Astrolabe Bay. However, if you can get close enough great shots are still possible.

It helps to learn to hold your breath for a few minutes and think like a fish.