29 Jan 2025
One last sunrise from my boat:
Last day of diving 🙁
I thought for sure someone tossed this guy overboard a few days ago, but I found my cool bug again in one of the bathrooms!
Dive #23 – Flair Point
During the night, our boat headed south, to Ribbon Reef #3, where we’ll be doing our final dives.
The water here was clear enough that I spotted this cuttlefish on the descent:
Normal trumpetfish:
Trumpetfish, yellow morph:
Flagtail triggerfish:
Batfish:
These guys have slightly larger snouts than spadefish.
This parrotfish isn’t in my fish book:
Fancy clam!
Barred thick-lip wrasse:
Dwarf hawkfish:
Juvenile bicolor parrotfish:
Leopard coral grouper:
Blackspotted puffer
Masked grouper:
Unicornfish:
Orange-lined triggerfish:
Bumphead parrotfish:
This school was about 2 dozen strong- they started off in the distance, but I stayed still and they eventually accepted me into their ranks:
Phyllidiopsis shireenae:
Damselfish cleaning station:
Two of the cutest little Black and white snappers!
They flitted around together and wouldn’t stay still for pictures (I have so many blurry shots of them) so this is the best I could do.
Anemonefish:
Dive #24 – Joanie’s Joy
Black and white snapper, the sub-adult version of those cute little guys from the first dive:
I haven’t really taken many pictures of cardinalfish, so here are a couple- a Narrowstripe on the top and a Five-line on the bottom:
Scalefin anthias:
Dotdash goatfish:
Banded goatfish:
Twospined angelfish!
Finally! a decent shot!
Slingjaw wrasse:
Blacklip butterflyfish:
Triangle butterflyfish:
Sabre squirrelfish, one of the larger squirrelfish varieties I’ve seen:
Freckled hawkfish:
Leaf scorpionfish!
One of the guides spotted him drunkedly hopping around the bottom:
He was quite active, and it took a while for him to hop into a good position for pictures:
Bicolor angelfish:
Bigeye snapper (top) and Longspot? snapper (bottom):
Humpnose bigeye bream:
Moorish idol:
*chomp!* Titan triggerfish who are not nesting are much safer to approach:
Pennant bannerfish:
Southern tube lip:
Look at his mouth! Never seen a fish like this one before!
Vagabond butterflyfish:
Phyllidiella pustulosa:
Grouper cleaning station:
I think he’s a Spotband butterflyfish, but his bands are more zig-zag-y than the guy in my book:
Dive #25 – Steve’s Bommie
So, for the most part, even though we are 20+, my buddy and I have been trying to splash first so we can put some distance between us and everyone else, but for this dive we’re all confined to this one pinnacle.
Jelly on the descent:
Yellowmask surgeonfish:
Two Yellowmask surgeonfish!
Little lionfish:
and another!
and another!
Scalefin anthias (female):
Unicornfish!
A whole school of snappers:
The babiest little scorpionfish!
he was probably 5-6″ long. So cute!
Notodoris gardineri:
This pile of Green chromis was doing this weird thing where they’d wriggle and rub their bellies on the coral, then circle around and do it again:
Not sure what that was all about.
Midnight snapper:
Unicornfish:
There were quite a few of them at this site:
Dive #26 – Steve’s Bommie
So, when I was downloading pictures last night, I noticed my SD card’s remaining capacity was just over 600 pictures. Not a problem, as I average 50-60 shots per dive- plenty to make it through this last day of diving. But I got maybe half a dozen shots off on this dive before it flashed a “card full” error.
Shoot.
So I spent a good chunk of this last dive trying to find bad pictures that had already been backed up on my computer to delete. I tried to stay at least one remaining picture ahead, in case something cool came up, but I missed a lot of shots. Fish on this dive seemed to know I couldn’t take their picture and so many that I’ve been trying to photograph appeared, stayed still and seemed to pose.
Frustrating! but lesson learned (I hope!)
Diana’s hogfish:
A whole pile of snappers:
Bullethead parrotfish:
Blackbelt hogfish:
This anemone really was a vibrant purple!
Seychelles butterflyfish:
Pipefish!
Camouflage grouper:
There are two lunker scorpionfish in this picture:
Can you find them?
And just like that, my diving here is done 🙁
I spent the rest of the afternoon rinsing and hanging my gear- it’s overcast right now, but not currently raining, and there’s a nice breeze so hopefully my things start drying out.
We had one last barbecue buffet:
(the garbage can is for any food-related complaints 🙂 )
and just hung out talking for a good chunk of the evening. Before the boat lifted anchor to motor toward Cairns, I moved most of my gear down into my room or to the middle of the dive deck as there’s currently a tropical storm sitting off Cairns’ coast. I do have a land-based day in Cairns before I fly home so anything that doesn’t dry (or anything that dries, then gets re-wet in the rain) can hang around my hotel room.