There were lots of creatures living on the bottom, whether on the bottom of a part of the wreck or on the sea floor proper. One of them was the relatively hard-to-spot snowflake moray eel with its startled expression.
Other eels included the ribbon eel, like this yellow female…
… and this black juvenile.
Ribbon eels have a characteristic way of moving in and out of their holes, probably partly moving with the surge and partly to act like a lure for its prey.
Yet other eels we saw were the incredibly shy garden eels. It was impossible to get any closer without chasing them back into their holes.
I think these are spotted garden eels, but it’s difficult to tell without a close up picture.
Moving away from the eels, there were other fish that live in holes, like this goby…
… and this yellowbarred jawfish with its characteristic yellow mark on its eye.
Then there were the fish that simply sat on the bottom, never being found more than a few centimetres off the coral. Case in point is the leaf scorpionfish.
At Tulamben, we found the white variation…
… the yellow variation…
… and a red variation. Such was the multitude of fish at Tulamben, it was a fish photo collector’s paradise.
We were also lucky to find a rather hard to find ocellated frogfish. This tiny fella was about an inch or so long and we find him while battling a unexpected strong current. Too bad we weren’t able to stay for too long as I’d certainly like to get a better shot of him.
And last of all was this deeply depressing stonefish. It’s almost perfectly camouflaged, with only its glum downturned mouth to give itself away.
eat. drink. cook. travel. 