I’m working like a dog today, the day after American Thanksgiving to get a new calendar put together, hopefully to make a few bucks selling it. Before I go back to the Publishing Department to use their equipment, let me show you a few of the less ordinary images from my library. I don’t have a theme today. My mind is more or less blank. That seems to be happening a lot lately.

This is a spooky image of the interior of The Henry Leith,  a 34 metre cargo ship that was scuttled off Wongat Island  for an artificial reef and dive attraction:

Creepy, eh? The image seemed to be more interesting in monochrome. Simon and Garfunkel were wrong. Not everything  looks worse in black and white.

This lump-of-coal thingie is an Egg Cowrie (Ovula ovum).  It’s quite rare to see them. They always seem to favour this Leather Coral (Sarcophyton sp.)  as a resting place:

They make horrible photographic subjects. The mantle is as black as the inside of a witch’s psyche. I’ve often wondered if it looks different to fish. Maybe it reflects some portion of the light spectrum that our eyes can’t see. You can barely see some of the snow white shell peeking through the seam where the two halves of the mantle meet.

This, I think, is a very juvenile specimen of the coral Heliofungia actiniformis:I put it in here because, to us divers, it is a cute little baby thing. We bubble stupid stuff to each other like, “Awwww, look at the sweet little baby Heliofungia actiniformis.  Coochie coochie coo.”

It’s true.

Speaking of babies, these will grow up to have very big teeth, indeed:

They are juvenile barracuda. I don’t know what species. It’s interesting that the juvenile form here looks like a perfectly miniaturised copy of the adult.

Okay, back to work on the calendar.

On Saturday morning we motored in Faded Glory  up to Wongat Island  to dive The Henry Leith.  It is a favored spot for stingray watching. The most common type of stingray in the local waters is the Blue-Spotted Stingray (Dasyatis kuhlii).

The trick is to sneak up on them from behind, holding your breath as much as possible and catch them before they get nervous and take off. Often, you will see only their eyes protruding from the sand in which they have buried themselves. It is easy to glide right over one without noticing, which is probably the worst thing that you can do. This one is just taking off after letting me get close enough to get a good shot of him:

Now the stingray glides to a spot a few metres away where it feels more safe. This one is headed right into a school of Pickhandle Barracuda (Sphyraena jello),  but they are no threat to the stingray (or me):

When the stingray has gotten far enough away, it settles down onto the sand again:

It’s fun to chase them around the wreck. Since the water is only about 20 metres here, you can spend about an hour doing it, unless it gets boring. In that case you have the entire wreck to explore while you finish your dive.

This image is not particularly good, but you can see the Pickhandle Barracuda from directly overhead in the shadow of The Henry Leith:

There are plenty of potentially dangerous critters in the waters in which we dive, including some rather comical ones. However, we are careful and know what is safe and what is not. It is part of the magic of diving that there is risk. When the risks are considered and dealt with correctly, the risks themselves add to the enjoyment.

Fortunately for me, I enjoy taking photos of little things. That’s a particularly happy proclivity when it comes to underwater photography, because we don’t have the clearest water here. In murky water, the closer you get, the better the shot. Naturally, small subjects will yield the clearest shots.

That’s if you can get close enough.

This is a teeny-weeny fish. I don’t know what it is. When they are this small (about1 cm), they are very difficult to identify unless you have a lot of time to dig through the literature:

I do know the name of this one. It’s an Urchin Clingfish (Diademichthys lineatus). This little fellow would be about 4 cm long:

The unusual half-vertical head-down swimming position is typical of this species.

Here are two fine examples of one of our most beautiful reef fishes, the Fire Dartfish (Nemateleotris magnifica):

These are common on only a few reefs. They must have very specific requirements for habitat. They favour the tops of reefs that are swept clean of sand and small rubble. The specimens above are about 4 or 5 cm long.

This little fishy is a Three Lined Blenny (Ecsenius trilineatus):

This is their typical resting position. They like to be out in the sun. Other blennys prefer to hide in holes.

Speaking of hiding in holes, that is the favourite habitat of the shrimpgobys. This one is a Randall’s Shrimpgoby (Amblyeleotris randalii). There is usually a small shrimp that inhabits the same hole. I’ll show a photo of that sometime:

The little shrimpgoby above is about 5 cm long.

These are razorfish. I’m too lazy to look up the taxonomic name:

They appear to be impossibly tall and skinny – like a beanpole. However, if you look closely, you’ll see that they swim with their heads pointing straight down so that they blend in with the vertically branched corals and sea grasses that are their preferred habitat. They are really a long, slender fish, but they swim as if they’re standing on their heads. If you disturb them, they immediately adopt a horizontal position and dart away.

Even little fish can be startling if you get enough of them in one place. In this shot, Carol is rising up through a fish storm to the forward hatch of The Henry Leith:

I could hear her screeching with delight through her regulator. That’s a mark of an experienced diver.