Excellent, EXCELLENT dive @ Hantu!
Did 2 dives at Pulau Hantu Kechil's Northern jetty today. Amidst the background sounds of piling going on just across the channel at Ular, we saw lots and LOTS of REALLY COOL THINGS! Ironically, I think this is exactly what makes diving in Singapore so unique! Heh. Guess that's what you get when you have the fortune to have Chay Hoon with the bionic eyes as your buddy, and experienced dive guide MS - who didn't have his camera and therefore helped us find lots of cool things - to show you around.
I have to say, these probably count amongst the best dives I've ever done anywhere.
It all started out with my desire to see an allied cowrie. I've never seen the kind amongst the whips at the Southern Islands before. So we didn't eventually manage to find these elusive buggers. But spending lots of time deep (today was the perfect opportunity to do this as visibility was probably >6m), staring at whips did net loads of other cool stuff, including, not 1, but TWO!!! Gorgonian shrimp! My first!!! :) And loads and loads of similar-looking gobies...I wonder if they are all the same species?
Sharp-eyed MS spent a lot of time poking around the whips to see if he could find me the desired allied cowrie. Instead, he found this! :) Torzeuma armatum, the Gorgonian shrimp.
And then he found another one, on the second dive, under the jetty, on a different kind of gorgonian!
On the whips were also lots and lots of these cute little gobies.
And on the topic of cool commensals, MS found an urchin with some clingfish! Another first for me!
Diademichthys lineatus, the Urchin clingfish, in their host.
Here they are again, close up!
We also saw lots of cool flatworms!
And I lost count of the types and numbers of nudibranchs we saw...
...from the colourful Chromodoris...
Chromodoris fidelis
Chromodoris lineolata
Chromodoris coi - yet another first for me!!!
...numerous phyllids...
Phyllidia ocellata
And other phyllids which I have never been able to distinguish...
...to other weird and wacky fellas...
CH got her wish amply granted, when we found one Ceratosoma trilobatum after another on the jetty pillars. This particular fella preened like anything in front of my camera...
Bornella stellifer
A tiny Armina sp.
Jorunna funebris, with the pretty bumpy patterns.
And this one, one of the Flabellinas, I forget which.
And a most obliging pipefish! Camera already quite fogged up... :(
And actually lots more, but my camera was either fogged up, or had run out of batteries... Schools of rabbitfish, lots of filefish, including some big Fan-bellied filefish under the jetty, a batfish, juvenile Harlequin sweetlips, lots of beautiful gobies, small, colourful ones, esp near the jetty, a large carpet eel blenny out of its hole. More nudis, a shy octopus... even a suspected comet (waiting for CH to post her photo). Hehe. Being completely blur about fishes, I had pointed out the beautiful black thing with numerous small white-spots in the hole behind this distracting filefish, as I thought it might have been an eel or something. But when they made nothing of it, I also shrugged and swam on... :p
Yet another wonderful day out on the reefs, with perfect weather, awesome vis, and the reefs being unusually generous in offering up its secrets - or perhaps just with two extra pairs of bionic macro eyes to help... Many thanks to Debby for organising this Hantu Blog dive, the lovely dive guides and my wonderful dive buddy.
Too happy for words. I will DEFINITELY treasure the memories while I toil away in the sterile, Caribbean seas... sigh...
-------------
Update: Have uploaded the photos on Multiply.
Also see CH's blog for nice pictures and correct nudibranch names. ;)
I have to say, these probably count amongst the best dives I've ever done anywhere.
It all started out with my desire to see an allied cowrie. I've never seen the kind amongst the whips at the Southern Islands before. So we didn't eventually manage to find these elusive buggers. But spending lots of time deep (today was the perfect opportunity to do this as visibility was probably >6m), staring at whips did net loads of other cool stuff, including, not 1, but TWO!!! Gorgonian shrimp! My first!!! :) And loads and loads of similar-looking gobies...I wonder if they are all the same species?
Sharp-eyed MS spent a lot of time poking around the whips to see if he could find me the desired allied cowrie. Instead, he found this! :) Torzeuma armatum, the Gorgonian shrimp.
And then he found another one, on the second dive, under the jetty, on a different kind of gorgonian!
On the whips were also lots and lots of these cute little gobies.
And on the topic of cool commensals, MS found an urchin with some clingfish! Another first for me!
Diademichthys lineatus, the Urchin clingfish, in their host.
Here they are again, close up!
We also saw lots of cool flatworms!
And I lost count of the types and numbers of nudibranchs we saw...
...from the colourful Chromodoris...
Chromodoris fidelis
Chromodoris lineolata
Chromodoris coi - yet another first for me!!!
...numerous phyllids...
Phyllidia ocellata
And other phyllids which I have never been able to distinguish...
...to other weird and wacky fellas...
CH got her wish amply granted, when we found one Ceratosoma trilobatum after another on the jetty pillars. This particular fella preened like anything in front of my camera...
Bornella stellifer
A tiny Armina sp.
Jorunna funebris, with the pretty bumpy patterns.
And this one, one of the Flabellinas, I forget which.
And a most obliging pipefish! Camera already quite fogged up... :(
And actually lots more, but my camera was either fogged up, or had run out of batteries... Schools of rabbitfish, lots of filefish, including some big Fan-bellied filefish under the jetty, a batfish, juvenile Harlequin sweetlips, lots of beautiful gobies, small, colourful ones, esp near the jetty, a large carpet eel blenny out of its hole. More nudis, a shy octopus... even a suspected comet (waiting for CH to post her photo). Hehe. Being completely blur about fishes, I had pointed out the beautiful black thing with numerous small white-spots in the hole behind this distracting filefish, as I thought it might have been an eel or something. But when they made nothing of it, I also shrugged and swam on... :p
Yet another wonderful day out on the reefs, with perfect weather, awesome vis, and the reefs being unusually generous in offering up its secrets - or perhaps just with two extra pairs of bionic macro eyes to help... Many thanks to Debby for organising this Hantu Blog dive, the lovely dive guides and my wonderful dive buddy.
Too happy for words. I will DEFINITELY treasure the memories while I toil away in the sterile, Caribbean seas... sigh...
-------------
Update: Have uploaded the photos on Multiply.
Also see CH's blog for nice pictures and correct nudibranch names. ;)
Labels: Diving
posted by Wai at 2:16 AM
1 Comments:
*darn* why does it seem that everybody else's dives seem so much nicer? *sulk* and here I was nursing a hacking throat and a bad tummy yesterday...guess the grass is always greener on the other side.. or rather, the seas are always bluer in another person's dive~~
Oh wells, so how goes the organising of a leisure trip to jong?
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