25 Jan 2025
Despite the boat not moving, I still didn’t sleep well- I keep waking up at midnight, and 3am, and 6am right before the anchor lifts. Ugh, looks like I’ll be napping again later today!
On the plus side, I did catch this sunrise:
Today we’ve got 4 dives, including a couple at the famous “Cod Hole”, which is home to some very friendly groupers!
Dive #8 – Two Towers
A giant school of snappers to start the dive:
Sweetlips:
Another shot by my buddy:
Photo by Ryan
(and yes, my octo has come free of its holder)
Fire dartfish:
So… notice that shadow on the left. Yup, one of my strobes disconnected again. I really need to rig up a way to keep them in place so this doesn’t keep happening. These first few fish were close enough that my one strobe provided enough light, but later fish were further away so colors on this dive suffered a bit 🙁
A pair of Orange-dashed gobies:
Solor boxfish:
Pseudoceros laingensis?
He looks similar to other Pseudoceros laingensis I’ve seen, but his “ears” are red and the internet isn’t being helpful in making a better identification.
Clark’s? anemonefish:
Diver with fish:
This is where it became quite evident that my lighting is off- the following fish were just far enough away that my one functioning strobe wasn’t quite powerful enough to properly light them, which is unfortunate because I found some cool fishes.
Chevron butterflyfish:
School of fusilier:
Giant trevally:
Sailfin tang (top) and Spotted rabbitfish (bottom):
Bird wrasse:
Blenny:
Small school of snappers:
Dive #9 – Cod Hole
Another nurse shark!
She was not a fan of us and our pictures, and took off with her posse of juvenile Golden trevally:
Little blenny:
Pink anemonefish:
A pair of Sailfin tang:
So, if you ever see a triggerfish chomping on the ground like this, give it a wide berth:
Titan triggerfish are extremely territorial when they’re nesting and I got a bit too close to this one- I had to backpedal away, keeping my fins between me and it, because they are especially chompy. It chased me for much longer than I thought it would- their territory is more like a cone, so you can’t just swim up to get away, you need to swim horizontal, which I did, but it still followed me for longer than expected. But I didn’t get chomped, so win?
I’m still trying to get a really good picture of these anthias:
Leopard blenny:
Not a great shot, but this guy was as florescent as a highlighter!
Sweetlips:
Notodoris minor, the Banana nudi!!!!
My buddy spotted this guy- he was a solid 3″ long!
How cool is he!?
Dwarf hawkfish:
Juvenile Yellowtail coris:
Flagtail triggerfish:
and finally, one rather sad looking Red snapper:
Dive #10 – Cod Hole
So, I knew the Potato cods were friendly, but I didn’t know my boat fed them…
Apparently they have a special permit to do so, but I’m not a fan of “baited” dives.
These toothy red snappers, however, are big fans of a free meal- they kept swooping in and stealing the treats before the cod could get them.
Something tried to make a meal of that red snapper, but his fin is covering up the huge chunk missing from his side.
They asked that we not use flash, so the colors on these pictures aren’t great.
I’m pretty sure I turned my strobes back on, but the colors on this dive are all sorts of off 🙁
Bicolor? parrotfish:
I love the pattern on his lower scales.
Pink anemonefish:
Look at the little spiky dorsal fins on these guys!
Titan triggerfish, not nesting:
Black-blotched porcupinefish:
I actually took quite a few pictures of unique fish on this dive, but the colors are terrible, so I won’t subject you to their mediocrity.
Dive #11 – Snake Pit
Despite the name, there aren’t actually snakes here. I guess there used to be many years ago, but they haven’t been seen in ages.
Humphead wrasse:
Flagtail triggerfish:
I tend to get these next 2 fish mixed up- this is a pair of Pennant bannerfish:
Humphead bannerfish:
Coral rabbitfish:
Juvenile Maori? wrasse:
Clark’s? anemonefish:
Sailfin tang (front) and Indian saifin surgeonfish (back):
Another Sailfin tang:
Blacktip grouper:
Bicolor angelfish:
Saddle butterflyfish:
I tried so hard to get a picture of this Spotband butterflyfish and of course the one clear picture I have is of him is when he turned toward the camera:
Yellow-tail emperor fish:
Sub-adult black and white snapper:
Every now and then my camera surprises me with a crisp shot, like this one of a Nagasaki damselfish:
Unicornfish!
I wasn’t sure if this was a nudi or a piece of coral (it was about 1″ long and tucked up under a ledge) so I just snapped the one picture, but when I loaded it up it was clearly a banana nudi / Notodoris minor:
A pair of Orange-dashed gobies:
Blackstreak surgeonfish:
Remora:
…wonder who he detached from…
Anemonefish enjoying a clean:
An eel, getting his teeth cleaned:
Threespot dascyllus:
Bicolor blenny:
There was a MASSIVE school of fish surrounding this coral, but my camera is not set up for wide angle:
I tried to shoot a selfie from inside the fish ball, but again, my lens isn’t nearly wide enough:
Anton, one of our guides came through with his camera, taking stellar pictures of people surrounded by little fishes, like this one of another guide, Holly:
Photo by Anton
and for some reason, when he asked if I wanted a picture, I said no.
I instantly had regrets, but he had moved on to other divers, or so I thought- he still snapped a few pictures of me, taking pictures of myself:
Photo by Anton
Not as stellar as if I had posed, but still fun non-the-less!
Photo by Anton
After our dive, the boat relocated to Lizard Island, where we’ll be docked for the night:
Tawny nurse shark cruising around off the back of our boat:
Once we were docked, they offered a tour of the engine room- loud, and very warm, but cool to see!
Barbecue feast for our last night (well, for some of the divers, tomorrow we’ll head to shore to drop some of them at the airport and pick up new guests):
