16 Sept 2025
Good morning!
Last night while we slept, the boat relocated southeast, further into the Banda Sea:
To an little volcano island that is not on my hiker app or Google Maps:
It last erupted in 2001 and it erupted sideways not up.
Here’s the plan for today:
Dive #10 – Coconut Corner
Now this is my kind of dive! I spotted a nudi within moments of dropping, but while waiting for him to settle in the surge, a snake came through!
There are a TON of these sea kraits wiggling around! They are venomous, but fairly docile, so as long as you don’t mess with them, you’re probably fine. Plus, their fangs are small and I’m wearing like 5mm of neoprene. Totally safe 🙂
Mobula overhead:
Another sea krait hunting:
Salma riwo:
Salma bicolor:
I see you scorpionfish…
Just a Pseudobiceros bedfordi, tumbling through the water column:
Salma riwo:
These Salma riwo are new-to-me and I’ve seen at least half a dozen so far!
From a distance these aeolid nudis all look the same to me, it’s not until I get them loaded onto my computer that I see if I found a new one. I’ve seen this guy, the Caloria indica, before, but he’s still pretty!
Plus, the volcano warms the sand- I’ll sometimes use a finger to anchor myself in the sand and it was really hard not to just shove my whole hand in- especially since water temps here, while hovering around 80°F/26.5°C, are starting to get a bit cool toward the end of my dive.
Mr. Grumpyface:
Fire dartfish:
Not-nemos:
Blacklip butterflyfish:
Canary wrasse, initial phase:
Ornate leopard wrasse:
Phyllidia elegans?
Got lucky with this shot, these juvenile Rockmover wrasses just flit around like leaves in the wind so getting a decent shot is pretty much just luck:
Salma bicolor:
Breakfast, buffet style:
The seas are calmer here than on yesterday’s dives:
Dive #11 – Bubble Reef
Topography here is a bit different- more lava rocks and, even though they didn’t really come through in my pictures, bubbles coming up from below!
Snake!
A different snake!
The Chinese sea krait:
I love when blennies peek out of their holes- it looks like they’re smiling 🙂
Interesting formation:
Wee crab:
Thysanozoon nigropapillosum:
Little fish sitting on the edge of a coral:
Snake, it’s a snake!
oh it’s a snake!
It looks like something tried to take a chomp out of this little guy:
Snake nestled around a coral:
This little nudi had an even smaller hitchhiker!
Little coral crab:
Peacock-tail anemone shrimp:
It wasn’t until I loaded this picture that I noticed all the little bugs crawling over these two nudis:
Mirror butterflyfish:
Judgemental wrasse:
Posing snake:
I like when snakes are snake-shaped:
The blurry guy standing on our dinghy threw me a rope thinking I had drifted away when in reality, I just needed to kick back a bit to try to get this shot:
(which didn’t turn out all that great anyway)
Dive #12 – Kejutan
Pictures from this dive turned out strangely dark- did my strobe cable come disconnected? Unfortunate, since there were a lot of snakes out hunting, but anything beyond 5′ or 6′ turned out like this:
Snake face!
Not a snake- a baby trumpetfish:
Jorunna funebrus:
Fire dartfish:
Not-so-chompy eel:
Soapfish!
I love their little chins!
There’s usually some downtime between the afternoon dive and dinner, so after downloading pictures and swapping camera batteries, I busted out the big camera and went hunting:
Found another frigatebird:
There are also boobies here- they catch fish and the frigates steal it from them. It’s fun to watch, but hard to capture on camera.
A pod of melon-head dolphins also swam through, but all I caught were blurry fins 🙁
The sun sets early here, so I snapped this picture before heading down to dinner. Unfortunately, I started feeling not-so-great afterwards… it might be a long night (and I am once again very thankful for that bidet!)
Good night?