In the morning we returned to Kirby’s Rock to look for the Pygmy seahorse again. Today we traversed the site in the opposite direction from last time. We started on top of the wall, went down the wall, around the outside of the little side pinnacle, then back through the channel with the gorgonian with the Pygmy on it. Unfortunately no Pygmy was found today. Boohoo. But near that spot, Joemar found two more of the pink tipped orange nudi that I really like, and they were pretty big and on an attractive background.
I may have mentioned this before but this site has a zillion little moray eels, including a few that I saw swimming out in the open. I found one hole with two morays just poking their snouts out constantly opening and closing their mouths. Very cute. The other highlights of the dive were two frogfish… one big gray-purple one and one small white one. They were both on the main pinnacle. Other than that spent much of the dive enjoying all of the fish life in the water column… tons of anthias and blue triggerfish.
After the dive we stopped at a little village on the water on Maricaban island, so the crew could buy some fishing lures. While they were off doing that we enjoyed viewing the local wildlife, which included a goat, a cat and a kitten, a dog, and several chickens. Then we headed to the next dive site which was just a bit further down the island. This site had a slope with patches of coral. I found this dive to be a bit of a dud, though many slugs and such were found, it wasn’t that productive and there was not much that was super notable. Joemar did find a nice magenta edge ribbon with these dark reds slugs in it. We’d seen some of these earlier in the week,but they were nice bushy specimens. I found a shy octopus under a ledge as well.
We got back pretty early so I had a long non-nap after lunch. For the afternoon dive, we were once again on the alternate boat. We went to a site just down from the hotel, past Twin Rocks but still in front of planet dive. It was a San slope with coral patches. The slope went down a ways. I made it past 90 feet and we spent a while in the 75 foot range. The dive wasn’t super productive in terms of number of finds, but there were some good ones. First and most important… a pikachu nudi!!! Well it was the white version so not sure I can call it that. A purple dragon nudi (not sure if that’s the real name or just what I call it). A big sea snake right at the end near the surface. And a big school of various fish, including jacks, also near the surface at the end. There were tons of fish streaming by on the bottom all through the dive, but it wasn’t until I came up shallower near the end that I saw these big schools in the water column.
For the night dive, we dove the house reef. But we got into the boat, which took us just a little bit to the right of the resort and dropped us in, with the plan being that we would swim back and exit from the beach. With people to take our tanks out of the water for us of course :P. It was a pretty productive dive from the nudibranchs standpoint. I once again managed to find a bunch of hydroid nudis! On one hydroid bush, I found 5 slugs of 3 different kinds. The longer I looked, the more I saw. I guess the highlight of the dive (even though I was very impressed with my nudi finding skills) was a bobtail squid! It was in the shallows very close to the resort, as we were wrapping up the dive. It was not really in the mood to swim around for us and show off its bobtail… it kept sinking into the sand. But still, an uncooperative bobtail squid is better than none :P
When we surfaced, there were dive staff in the water waiting for us to take our rigs off so they could carry them out for us. This seemed a bit lame to me, but I went along with it. I did insist on carrying my own fins. Rob was not playing along though and just walked out of the water in his rig. Which then made me feel a bit lame for not doing the same. But not that lame. It’s vacation after all ;)
My evening cocktail tonight was a Mai tai. It was very sweet, even for a Mai tai. And very alcoholic. Whew.
In the morning we returned to Kirby’s Rock to look for the Pygmy seahorse again. Today we traversed the site in the opposite direction from last time. We started on top of the wall, went down the wall, around the outside of the little side pinnacle, then back through the channel with the gorgonian with the Pygmy on it. Unfortunately no Pygmy was found today. Boohoo. But near that spot, Joemar found two more of the pink tipped orange nudi that I really like, and they were pretty big and on an attractive background.
I may have mentioned this before but this site has a zillion little moray eels, including a few that I saw swimming out in the open. I found one hole with two morays just poking their snouts out constantly opening and closing their mouths. Very cute. The other highlights of the dive were two frogfish… one big gray-purple one and one small white one. They were both on the main pinnacle. Other than that spent much of the dive enjoying all of the fish life in the water column… tons of anthias and blue triggerfish.
After the dive we stopped at a little village on the water on Maricaban island, so the crew could buy some fishing lures. While they were off doing that we enjoyed viewing the local wildlife, which included a goat, a cat and a kitten, a dog, and several chickens. Then we headed to the next dive site which was just a bit further down the island. This site had a slope with patches of coral. I found this dive to be a bit of a dud, though many slugs and such were found, it wasn’t that productive and there was not much that was super notable. Joemar did find a nice magenta edge ribbon with these dark reds slugs in it. We’d seen some of these earlier in the week,but they were nice bushy specimens. I found a shy octopus under a ledge as well.
We got back pretty early so I had a long non-nap after lunch. For the afternoon dive, we were once again on the alternate boat. We went to a site just down from the hotel, past Twin Rocks but still in front of planet dive. It was a San slope with coral patches. The slope went down a ways. I made it past 90 feet and we spent a while in the 75 foot range. The dive wasn’t super productive in terms of number of finds, but there were some good ones. First and most important… a pikachu nudi!!! Well it was the white version so not sure I can call it that. A purple dragon nudi (not sure if that’s the real name or just what I call it). A big sea snake right at the end near the surface. And a big school of various fish, including jacks, also near the surface at the end. There were tons of fish streaming by on the bottom all through the dive, but it wasn’t until I came up shallower near the end that I saw these big schools in the water column.
For the night dive, we dove the house reef. But we got into the boat, which took us just a little bit to the right of the resort and dropped us in, with the plan being that we would swim back and exit from the beach. With people to take our tanks out of the water for us of course :P. It was a pretty productive dive from the nudibranchs standpoint. I once again managed to find a bunch of hydroid nudis! On one hydroid bush, I found 5 slugs of 3 different kinds. The longer I looked, the more I saw. I guess the highlight of the dive (even though I was very impressed with my nudi finding skills) was a bobtail squid! It was in the shallows very close to the resort, as we were wrapping up the dive. It was not really in the mood to swim around for us and show off its bobtail… it kept sinking into the sand. But still, an uncooperative bobtail squid is better than none :P
When we surfaced, there were dive staff in the water waiting for us to take our rigs off so they could carry them out for us. This seemed a bit lame to me, but I went along with it. I did insist on carrying my own fins. Rob was not playing along though and just walked out of the water in his rig. Which then made me feel a bit lame for not doing the same. But not that lame. It’s vacation after all ;)
My evening cocktail tonight was a Mai tai. It was very sweet, even for a Mai tai. And very alcoholic. Whew.
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