Back to Tulamben: Crustaceans

There were a whole load of crustaceans around in Tulamben. Considering that we hardly did any night dives, which is when they typically come out to play, it is again a testament to the great diving at Tulamben that we saw so manyof them.

Here’s a brightly coloured coral crab under its anemone house. It’s a wonder it doesn’t get eaten that easily, its colour is so vivid.

Even more brightly coloured were the peacock mantis shrimp, its inquisitive eyes jutting out quizzically.

It’s when the mantis shrimp is in side profile that one understands why it’s called that, for its tail has the pretty colours of a peacock.

We revisited startling specimens such as this orang utan crab, something you wouldn’t typically expect of something underwater, let along a crab.

It’s almost impossible to bring one of these into sharp focus, as it’s so hard to tell whether the fuzz is caught sharply or not.

There were also plenty of shrimp, like this imperial shrimp. It’s amazing how transparent its body is.

I guess the transparency is how it camouflages itself, especially when young. Check out how the young one is so much harder to spot than the full-size one.

There’s another type of mantis shrimp, the smashing mantis shrimp that hides in its hole waiting for unsuspecting prey to go past.

Here, I admire the bravery of these hingeback shrimp. They’re so close to the smashing mantis shrimp’s home that it’s impossible for the bigger one to catch the smaller ones. Nothing like being too close for comfort here!

Then again, these little shrimp are so tiny it’s hard to see how they’d make a dent in any sizeable creature’s stomach.

Still, they are very pretty and it’s fun to get in close to catch a good shot of this attractive orange shrimp.

One of my favourites, as regular readers would know, is the harlequin shrimp and again Tulamben didn’t disappoint. We saw this adorable pair posing as orchids.

It’s really cute how they strutted and posed about.

There were also some lobsters and these were incredibly well-camouflaged amongst the featherstars. Check out the yellow one here…

… and the red one here.

It’s hard to believe how sharp Wayan’s eyes were in spotting these.

Easier to spot but much harder to spot were the goby shrimp, who spent their days pushing sand out of burrows guarded by gobies. At any movement at all, the goby would dart back into the hole, and of course the shrimp would dart in at the first twitch of the goby’s tail.

Last of all in this series of crustaceans is this shell of sorts. I have no idea what it is. If anyone can identify it, I’d be really grateful.

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September in Bali: A Mucky Secret

The other highlight of being in Permuteran was diving at Secret Bay. I don’t think it’s that big a secret anymore, but not as many divers go there. It’s a muck diving place, meaning that less of the casual divers and more of the serious divers go there. Why? Because muck diving is all about diving in places with less than white sand and very little coral. The atmosphere can be very depressing because of the low light and poor visibility conditions. Nonetheless, there are plenty of weird and wonderful creatures to see.

I strongly suspect this to be the Kodipungi lionfish, with its separated pectoral fin rays. It’s so beautiful and flamboyant against the dull grey sand.

What surprised me next was the Banggai cardinalfish, something that is supposed to be very rare. When I’d last dived in Manado, I was told that these fish were only found at Banggai Island and the Lembeh Strait. Balderdash!

Their blue-black colouration with the almost fluorescent white spots was mesmerising.

There were also plenty of razorfish among the sea urchins. They were funny creatures that seemed to stand upside down on their noses to hunt for food.

When pursued, they’d turn ninety degrees so they could make a quick getaway, but were otherwise always nose to the ground.

Another rare find was the hispid frogfish. It was hilarious how each had a disarmingly charming white pompom on its forehead. This pompom acted like a lure to bring in prey. In a gulp, the poor fish would be gone.

Another odd fish was the cockatoo waspfish that liked to pretend to be a leaf swaying in the water. Very strange.

Less strange was this octopus that (for good reason) refused to budge from its hole. The best I could do was to take a blurred shot of its tentacles. Pity.

Other inhabitants of this freakish side show include the striped puffer with its dark blotch around the base of its pectoral fins making it look recessed and mutated.

Reflecting the green seaweed was this unidentified goby. It would’ve been difficult to spot if it was just a few inches into the seaweed.

Easier to identify was the spotted shrimpgoby with its distinctive white iris and black markings. It was surprisingly how I managed to get close enough without startling the shrimpgoby.

Almost completely camouflaged until it started moving was this peacock flounder with its weirdly asymmetrical eyes.

Another well-camouflaged fish was this orange and black dragonet, its only giveaway the orange lips.

There were more – this crocodile flathead, if left alone, would soon change colour to blend in with the sand below.

There was also this really ugly pipefish that looked like a piece of random trash in the water. No wonder it’s called muck diving.

Secret Bay was one of the few places where I saw full-sized seahorses, like this thorny seahorse. I was so thrilled by this find! Even though we’re told that pygmy seahorses are very rare, somehow I feel that full-sized ones are even more so because guides tend not to look out for them. What a great find.

Another unexpected find was this whole pile of schooling catfish in the wreck of a little rowboat.

Even more surprising was this ornate ghost pipefish floating along obliviously above the seething mass of catfish.

Other than that, there was a truly horrifying sea centipede, another first for me (and hopefully last).

And then there were the ubiquitous nudibranchs, though this time nothing I’ve seen before again.

Check out this scrum of beautiful blue and yellow ones too. Lovely huh.

And rounding things off, here’s a video of something not seen that often – a white-eye moray eel out of its hole in search of prey. Enjoy.

Layang Layang: Reef Life and Macro

Don’t think that Layang Layang is only for the pelagics. There’s plenty of macro to be found here, it’s only that sometimes the currents and the wall can be a bit challenging for finding those critters and also getting the perfect shot of that tiny little creature. There was a lot of reef life here, such as this rather surprised looking tomato grouper.

I was also quite pleased to see one of my favourites, a juvenile black snapper with its characteristic black and white stripes and dots.

Then there were the fish that insisting on posing for a picture, like this slightly constipated looking pennant bannerfish.

There were also bottom dwellers like blue-spotted stingrays.

They always seem to stare up so malevolently at us.

There were also other fairly amusing fish, like this doublebar goatfish. They like to rest on coral and pretend that they are not there, innocently spacing out, as if if they can’t see us we can’t see them!

Others showed off their colours beautifully against the coral, like these panda butterflyfish and peacock grouper.

DC is obsessed with the pufferfish family, just like I’m obsessed with hawkfish. His favourite shot of the whole trip is this seal-faced puffer that he cornered in a coral niche. It’s cute, isn’t it?

Not so cute is this giant frogfish that has its mouth open in wait for unsuspecting prey. In a split second, it’ll pounce and the prey will be in its belly.

Far less grotesque were pretty nudibranchs slowly making their way across the coral gardens.

They were surprisingly hard to spot among the colourful backdrop of coral, but once found, a joy to photograph.

Far harder to photograph were the pink anemonefish, who were so skittish, this is probably the only decent one I got amongst the tens of shots I took.

Going down to the seriously macro-level, I found some large whip gobies on a sea fan and thankfully this one wasn’t as shy as my next subject.

The Denise pygmy seahorses were such a pain to photograph. My camera had great difficulty focussing on the tiny creatures smaller than my fingernail. This one is pregnant and had the tendency to swim to the underside of the sea fan, making it impossible to catch on camera.

DC got this picture that’s far superior to mine, it’s so beautiful how he managed to capture the eye and its almost serene expression.

We had some good luck on sandy patches at the house reef at night. There was a flamboyantly coloured Spanish dancer.

There was also this strange blob of a sea slug oozing its way along.

Much prettier was this variation of a reeftop pipefish that wiggled its pretty pink tail and didn’t seem to mind the many flashes from our cameras.

Then there was the bizarrely shaped longhorn cowfish that seemed to have difficulty navigating its way out of this patch of seagrass.

Back on the coral reef, there were other oddities like this leaf scorpionfish with its glassy white eye staring out at us while swaying back and forth in the water pretending to be a leaf.

In the anemone were some porcelain crabs, which were quite shy. This one kept scuttling towards the underside of the anemone and it was really hard to keep up with it before it disappeared from sight.

A rare sight in the coral was this peacock flounder. Normally associated with muck diving, I was thrilled to see this one swim along and then try to rather unsuccessfully camouflage itself on some maze coral. Its googly eyes and patchy colouration gave it away immediately!

There were also quite a few shrimp and other crustaceans hiding out in crevices. Here’s DC trying to get a good snap of some shrimp.

They were some kind of orange cleaner shrimp that I have yet to identify, very pretty though!

Other cleaner shrimp like these commensal shrimp also hung around the same area. Both kinds would come out onto my hand and pick away at dead skin. I suppose it makes good eating for them. And round goes the circle of life!

There were also these spiny rock lobsters in another hole. I was so tempted to pull them out by their feelers but of course resisted. It’s a pity they were so shy though!

Back on the surface of the coral reef, we were happy to see the bigger fish thriving. There were plenty of sweetlips about, including these adult harlequin sweetlips that seemed to love giving a mirror mirage by going in pairs above and below the coral.

Then there was this emperor angelfish that came up to pose for a picture on my last dive. Such an obliging creature!

And last of the fish, there was this white mouth moray looking out for prey.

Unfortunately, as this video shows, it’s a bit of FAIL because it got slapped in the face by a passing fish. So much for being a lean, mean predator.

The nicest finale to our dive was getting up close to this turtle. As we approached, the green turtle was facing us and knew full well of our approach. Somehow it didn’t swim away.

DC got in close enough for a really macro shot of it.

But then we noticed something odd about the way it was rocking back and forth.

We realised that it was stuck in the coral! For the sake of this turtle, I broke one of the laws of diving – don’t touch any creature – and tugged it gently out. It got free and immediately coasted up towards the surface for a good breath of fresh air.

It was such a lovely feeling to end our successful series of dives by helping out a stranded turtle.