Tuesday afternoon I went diving north of Emon Beach again, and here is a small sample of what we saw.
Raccoon Butterflyfish
Red and Black Anemonefish – I love clownfish and their anemones. We first went to the large anemone with all the clownfish I posted a photo of in my last blog post, and then later found this other anemone with a type of clownfish I hadn’t seen before.
All different sorts of coral, sea urchins, and a Moorish Idol near the center of the photo.
Humbug Dascyllus – I love these little guys. They seem to be pretty common; I see them on every dive, but still enjoy them. The fish are black and white so I thought I’d try something different and make the photo black and white.
Another octopus! Hiding, once again. That makes two octopuses in the last two dives. Look in the hole at the bottom of that large piece of coral, and you’ll see a light-colored leg trying to squish its way in.
Now you can see an eyeball or two as the octopus tries just blend in and get farther and farther into its hole. Rob tried to dangle something in front of the hole to see if it would come out and play, but it was too stubborn, even after we backed off for a little while.
I’m not sure exactly what either of these fish are, but I know the one on the right is some sort of parrotfish.
Another highlight of the dive was seeing two or three Whitetip Reef Sharks! If you’ve been following my blog, you’ll know I saw sharks “in the wild” for the first time while snorkeling last month. This dive marked the first time I’d seen sharks on a scuba dive. They were pretty shy and not very cooperative when it came to photos.
This is as the shark in the previous photo was trying to swim away from me.
Still trying to get away.
I later saw one of the sharks actually feeding on this large school of fish, called Rainbow Runners.
Shrimpgoby – not sure just what kind of shrimpgoby, but I saw at least a couple of these on this dive. This is a fascinating type of little fish that has a symbiotic relationship with a shrimp. The shrimp is nearly blind and so the fish keeps a lookout and warns of potential danger. If the danger grows too close, the shrimpgoby will very quickly dive into the shrimp’s hole and hang out in there until the danger passes. Of course this benefits the shrimpgoby as well for it then has a place to avoid danger itself. I saw the shrimp this fish was protecting, but wasn’t fast enough to get a photo of it before it went and hid.
All in all, another great dive!