Ambon
We’re off the grid for a few weeks, diving in the land of coral gobies – aren’t they cute? We’ll try to post as soon as our boat comes in for provisioning, if we can find an Internet cafe. So don’t forget about us – check back soon for more fish fun.
Ambon, Indonesia, April 2013 ~ I don’t know what made me touch the little piece of tufted algae – At that moment, I should have been concerned with surfacing and getting myself back to the tender waiting off the beach in the raging rainstorm that had started up while we were diving. But touch it I did and with a jerk, it bolted up off the bottom and started writhing through the water. It was a Melibe nudibranch and one … Read more
Update April 2016 ~ The paper describing the little Bryozoan Goby was published this month in the Journal of Ocean Science. It is named Sueviota bryozophila. The paper by scientists, Gerald R. Allen, Mark V. Erdmann, and N.K. Dita Cahyani, is titled “Sueviota bryozophila, a new species of coral-reef goby from Indonesia (Teleostei: Gobiidae)”, and is available online from the Journal of the Ocean Science Foundation. With this goby, the genus Sueviota has five species. The Latinized species name, bryozophila, means bryozoan-loving. Since we wrote about this … Read more
April 2013, Ambon Indonesia ~ Ned loves night dives. I do not. So when Marcel Hagendijk, manager of Maluku Divers, started talking about the cool creatures that drift through the harbor at night, I started sliding down into my chair. “You know we could put you out there on a line and let you drift,” said Marcel casually. Ned perked up; that was all he needed to hear. The next night, he and our guide, Semuel Bukasiang, drifted in the middle … Read more
Looking at the distant Laha Jetty in the lovely light of the morning sun, it is hard to believe it is one of the muckiest and most trash-strewn places we’ve ever dived. It was worth it – the combination of volcanic rock and nutrient rich, fresh water run-off in Ambon Harbor, Indonesia seems to attract some of the most exotic marine life creatures in the world.
Ambon Indonesia, April 2011 – Dark, murky water; volcanic rubble; no coral – we have been working our way to this site since the start of our dive cruise that began near Batanta, Indonesia two weeks ago. The areas we visit so far have stunningly beautiful coral reefs – full of fish, but the critter hunter in me unapologetically waits for my real target: Ambon’s Laha Pier, a.k.a., the Twilight Zone. This site has been serving up exotic critters since … Read more
Under the Laha dock in Ambon is not the most scenic dive site in the world, but what an amazing place for critter watching. This seahorse, pointed out by my friend Wendy McIlroy, looked like it was eating a nudibranch. Theoretically nudibranchs exhibit aposematic coloration, bright colors that warn would-be predators that they are toxic or distasteful, but maybe this seahorse was colorblind. Once I settled down and focused, it was obvious that the little flabellina wasn’t breakfast – it … Read more