My right big toe has been numb since Tuesday, after my last dive. It's getting worse and I'm thinking I should maybe get it checked out. I called the DAN (Divers Alert Network) hotline and they didn't seem terribly concerned, but said it could be a compressed nerve. I wonder if that insurance I bought from them covers compression chamber visits for numb toes? Hopefully it'll go away and I won't have to find out!
Anyhow, it's for the last set of photos and videos from my liveaboard trip! The videos are all super short and totally worth watching, I promise. :)
Another Glorious Flatworm!
Melon butterflyfish!
Orangespine surgeonfish! This fish can change colours very rapidly depending on its mood. It's also known as a
Naso tang, redlip surgeonfish, and orange spine unicornfish.
Parrotfish!
I regret to say that the most exciting dive of my trip was one of the two dives I failed to take my camera on. It was the morning of my second day on-board, and I was still feeling horribly seasick and tired from not sleeping all night. Reuben, one of the chefs, convinced me to get in the water because it would make me feel better. I was dubious, but willing to try anything, so I suited up and jumped in. I immediately felt better--literally, within a minute the nausea was gone--but didn't think to grab my camera. Which was a shame, because on this dive I saw dolphins! A mom and baby came up to check out our group of divers, and while they only stuck around for about 30 seconds, it was still magical.
We also saw a hairy ghost pipe fish, which I'd never heard of but Reuben was excited about. He kept pointing to something that looked like a tiny chunk of red algae. I knew that seahorses sometimes covered themselves in algae as a disguise, so I mimed 'seahorse?' to him by making a "C" shape with my hands followed by pretending to ride a horse. (Communicating underwater is challenging but fun.) They're related to seahorses, so I was close!
Photo by Dave Harasti.
We also saw two green sea turtles, a shark, a peacock flounder, and three beautiful nudibranches, which are colourful sea slugs. Nudibranches are types of sea slugs, but not all sea slugs are nudibranches. They're really gorgeous and diverse, and really fun to find. They're also good to photograph because they move so slowly. I love them!
This is similar to one of the nudibranches we saw.Photo by John Johnstone.
Here's a nudibranch photo that I took:
Isn't it pretty? I love nudibranches!
We also saw a gigantic stingray, called a "botched fantail ray," one of the largest species of rays. They can grow to 6 feet wide, 11 feet long, and 330 pounds! (That's 1.8m wide, 3.3m long, and 150kg for metric folks.) I wanted to ride it but I couldn't catch it. Good thing, too, because there's been at least one recorded human fatality from--you guessed it--a diver stabbed while trying to ride it. We saw it on a night dive and it was too large to get the whole thing in a frame with flash, but here's what I got:
It was HUGE. If you look close, you can see the eye and spiracle (breathing hole) on one side!
Don't you just want to ride it though? It looks like the perfect size.
And a few more photos from various dives:
Crowned puffers only get to be a few inches long. They're so cute!
Pink anemonefish in an anemone.
Sailfin surgeonfish.
Another Napoleon wrasse!
This here is (what I think is) a juvenile rockmover wrasse. He's cute, in an alien-type way. I got a video of him!
Look at that face. Cute!
More anemonefish:
Anemonefish!
Clownfish!
Another anemonefish!
Not sure what type of butterflyfish this is.
A parrotfish. I love their colours!
A patch of reef, probably 10 feet long or so. Good thing I had my wide-angle lens with me!
Bluespotted stingray!
I believe this is a goatfish, but I could be mistaken.
We got face-to-face with a Hawksbill sea turtle during one dive! Hawksbills are very similar in appearance to green sea turtles. You can tell it's a Hawksbill because of the curved 'beak' and by the jagged edges of the shell. I managed to get video of him!
Hawksbill sea turtle!
Hi there!
This is a Barramundi Cod! They're supposed to be pretty delicious.
Another unidentified but pretty fish.
Forcepfish!
Not a clue, but he's pretty!
More white tip reef sharks! You can actually see the white tips of the fins in this photo and video!
They look perfect for riding!
Moorish Idols are one of my new favourites! They look so pretty and elegant when swimming.
I love this guy's fin!
We've also got the Titan triggerfish, which I think is one of the prettiest fish around:
He's kicking up sand while trying to eat something.
We took some silly photos on my last dive:
Reiko!
Gigi.
I love the mask marks on our faces!
Hopefully I'll get a few more photos from my dive buddies, but that's all I've got for now. A big thank-you (and ありがとうございます) to everybody on Oceanquest, and I hope to see you all again soon! :)
Today I got some photos from Lonneke, one of my fellow hosties and dive buddies! The first one is a photo of me with Wally, one of the local Napoleon wrasses. The Napoleon wrasse is big, friendly, and not afraid of divers. Wally will let you pet him, rub the hump on his head, and even stick your hands in his mouth. He's great!
He's HUUUUUGE!
And this one is of me with a cuttlefish! Isn't he super adorable?! And they can change colour! I wanted to grab him and take him home with me forever, but unfortunately they're likely to grab you with their tentacles and rip your flesh apart with their beaks.
Notice how I'm not getting too close.
Life tip: if I won't go near it... you probably shouldn't either.
Not quite getting the whole 'squid beak' thing? Let me give you some visuals to help. Here is an octopus, and that thing in the middle is the beak. It may not look very big but it will mess you up.
Photo by Sheraz Sadiq.
Now most of you reading this know me, and know that I will try to grab/pet/touch just about anything interesting, and quite possibly try to eat it. But squids are on my "Things I Will NOT Grab/Pet/Touch" list. To give you some perspective, here are some things not on that list: snakes, spiders, venomous stonefish, or jellyfish. Squids are freaking scary, man. (They're not on the "Things I Will Not Eat" list, though. That's reserved for the truly terrifying, and also baby animals.)
Basically you should be imagining that scene from Pirates of the Caribbean where Jack Sparrow gets eaten by the Kraken. If you grab a squid or octopus, that's what will happen to your arm. If you're lucky. (Unless it's an itty-bitty baby one, and then, by all means, grab away!)
This is exactly what will happen. EXACTLY.
Okay, okay, so squids and octopi don't ACTUALLY have teeth. But those beaks are pretty scary, my friend! Everybody thinks "Oh, look at that cute octopus," and they never realize the horrifying bird-beaks lurking underneath the beast! You have been warned.
Now it's embarrassing story time! This was easily the most embarrassing dive of my life thus far. I did all of my dives with another crew member as a buddy, and while the regular crew members were very familiar with the dive sites, us hosties (short-term volunteers) were not. For some dives, it would just be me and another hostie. I'm a Rescue Diver, so on these dives I was often the most experienced and advanced diver, so I would lead. We also had passengers without buddies join our group sometimes.
Life tip: just because someone is more 'advanced' or 'experienced' than you doesn't mean that they know what they're doing.
I successfully navigated a few dives as the leader with no problems, but on the third day I led a dive with Reiko (another hostie) and a passenger named Steve. There was a fairly strong current and I wasn't familiar with the site, and hadn't gotten a good look at the site map. By the time we ran out of air and surfaced, it was very clear that I had no idea where we were. We surfaced several hundred metres from the boat and had to be 'rescued.' One of the crew members drove out on the dinghy, took our weights and my camera, told us to put in our regulators (the mouthpiece that you breathe through) and handed us a rope. We all held onto the rope in a line and got dragged back to the boat.
And you know what? As embarrassing as it was, getting towed back was actually super fun and totally worth the ridicule I got back on the boat. If only I could dive like that all the time! Reiko and Steve were both really great about the whole ordeal, but from now on I am going to make extra-special-sure that I know where I'm going. I didn't get lost again, but my navigation skills definitely need improvement.
Fortunately that dive wasn't a total loss, and I got some good photos:
We also saw a shark right as we got into the water!
This is Reiko!
A cute little starfish.
A wrasse of some kind.
A big school of blue-green chromis!
A six-banded angelfish!
Melon butterflyfish.
This is called a Glorious Flatworm! Glorious, indeed. What a great name.
Threadfin butterflyfish! It got its name from the tiny little 'thread' coming off the tail. If you look right next to the black
spot on the top of the tail fin, you'll see the 'thread' coming off.
This is a Forster's Hawkfish! It resembles neither a forest nor a hawk, so the name is little harder to remember on this one.
A pair of sailfin surgeonfish!
Another wrasse.
Giant clam! I love the colours inside, aren't they great?
Blue-spotted stingray. I tried to pet it but they're just so darn fast!
Another melon butterflyfish!
This is Gi, one of the excellent chefs on Oceanquest and one of my dive buddies, communing with the fishes.
Reiko posing with the remains of a giant clam. (Where's your peace sign, Reiko?)
I've also got a few videos! They're all very short, less than a minute long. If you're wondering what diving is like, this should hopefully give you an idea of the cool things you'll see underwater!
Hope you enjoyed those! More photos and videos will be up tomorrow. :)
