We woke to (finally) sunny conditions and lake flat conditions on the water, phew. For the first dive of the day, we went across the channel to a site called Bethlehem. It started around 20 feet and sloped down to about 65 feet, where there was a side flat rubble field, which was a treasure trove of macro critters! Joemar found so many tiny slugs, probably between 10 and 15 different kinds, mostly presented to us on a silver plate for photography :P. There were also some good crabs and shrimps, including one of the ones that lives on a wire coral, and some popcorn shrimp in one of those bulbous anemones.
Between dives we headed to the next site, called Layag, and hung out on the boat during the surface interval. Eventually we finally got back in. This site was super awesome, with beautiful coral heads covered with anthias and other tropical fish. There were zillions of crinoids in all different colors. It would have made for a great wide angle dive. Rob was shooting macro, though, and there were tons of great subjects. Joemar found a boxer crab right at the start (the ones with pompoms on their paws), plus there was a frogfish, a blue and yellow ribbon eel, a mantis shrimp, lots of nudis, and a dancing sweetlips. Overall a great dive site, one of the nicer patches of reef I’ve seen on this trip or our previous one here.
After lunch and a non-nap, we went back out to a spot very close to the hotel, right at the point. It was around where we did the night dive last night. The site was a slope down to 75 or so feet with patches of coral, but more patches than not patches. Actually the slope continues a bit deeper but it thins out to mostly sand. We spent a lot of time down around 75 feet. The highlight of the dive was a sea fan with not one but two Pygmy seahorses! They were the pinkish purple ones that I think are prettier than the one we’d seen yesterday. And one of the two was pretty big, well as big as I think they come. I could see it pretty well with my eyes. Joemar found these pretty early in the dive and Rob kept going back to the sea fan to get a few more pics.
Other than this, we saw a variety of nudis, and one small one that looked like it had only a single rhinophore. It was actually a non-nudi slug, a head-shielded slug known as a batwing slug. It was tiny with big spots, pretty cool looking for a non-nudibranch :P. One other find on the dive was some tiny eel type thing that was slithering around in a coral. Joemar says it had a bulbous head (I could just see its head was white versus a black or dark red body) but I don’t think Rob managed to get a pic. One other notable thing about this dive was that Rob got very low on gas and I had to share gas with him back to the boat. How embarrassing. When we surfaced the wind had picked up and little waves were breaking over my head. Luckily it was only like 2 minutes back to the hotel.
We hung out at the pool for a while and then headed back out for a night dive. The wind had calmed down. We went to a site around the point and a few minutes past it. It was a sandy slope it wasn’t the most productive dive. There was a lot of swimming around not finding anything but there were a few good finds. Very early on, Joemar found a small but not tiny octopus slithering around on the sand. And much later, after a lot of not seeing much, he found a really cool nudi on a hydroid, which I know we’ve seen before in the Philippines. But while we were looking at that, a tiny translucent squid suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Rob miraculously managed to actually get some shots of it, even though it looked like sea trash drifting in the water. We saw a second one of those tiny translucent squids a bit later, which looked even more like a tiny bit of sea trash. Other than that, there were a few other nudis and the usual assortment of small crabs and shrimp.
Tonight I had a pina colada.
We woke to (finally) sunny conditions and lake flat conditions on the water, phew. For the first dive of the day, we went across the channel to a site called Bethlehem. It started around 20 feet and sloped down to about 65 feet, where there was a side flat rubble field, which was a treasure trove of macro critters! Joemar found so many tiny slugs, probably between 10 and 15 different kinds, mostly presented to us on a silver plate for photography :P. There were also some good crabs and shrimps, including one of the ones that lives on a wire coral, and some popcorn shrimp in one of those bulbous anemones.
Between dives we headed to the next site, called Layag, and hung out on the boat during the surface interval. Eventually we finally got back in. This site was super awesome, with beautiful coral heads covered with anthias and other tropical fish. There were zillions of crinoids in all different colors. It would have made for a great wide angle dive. Rob was shooting macro, though, and there were tons of great subjects. Joemar found a boxer crab right at the start (the ones with pompoms on their paws), plus there was a frogfish, a blue and yellow ribbon eel, a mantis shrimp, lots of nudis, and a dancing sweetlips. Overall a great dive site, one of the nicer patches of reef I’ve seen on this trip or our previous one here.
After lunch and a non-nap, we went back out to a spot very close to the hotel, right at the point. It was around where we did the night dive last night. The site was a slope down to 75 or so feet with patches of coral, but more patches than not patches. Actually the slope continues a bit deeper but it thins out to mostly sand. We spent a lot of time down around 75 feet. The highlight of the dive was a sea fan with not one but two Pygmy seahorses! They were the pinkish purple ones that I think are prettier than the one we’d seen yesterday. And one of the two was pretty big, well as big as I think they come. I could see it pretty well with my eyes. Joemar found these pretty early in the dive and Rob kept going back to the sea fan to get a few more pics.
Other than this, we saw a variety of nudis, and one small one that looked like it had only a single rhinophore. It was actually a non-nudi slug, a head-shielded slug known as a batwing slug. It was tiny with big spots, pretty cool looking for a non-nudibranch :P. One other find on the dive was some tiny eel type thing that was slithering around in a coral. Joemar says it had a bulbous head (I could just see its head was white versus a black or dark red body) but I don’t think Rob managed to get a pic. One other notable thing about this dive was that Rob got very low on gas and I had to share gas with him back to the boat. How embarrassing. When we surfaced the wind had picked up and little waves were breaking over my head. Luckily it was only like 2 minutes back to the hotel.
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