scuba diving
Raja Ampat, Indonesia. February 2019. Ned bursts into our cabin, “Yan and I shot a fish we’ve never seen before!” It must be good – he hasn’t bothered to dry off before rushing down to download his camera’s memory card into his laptop. Now I regret skipping the morning dive. Tapping with one finger to avoid dripping into the laptop keys, Ned describes how he and Yan spent 40 minutes in a small cavern, patiently waiting for the 6-inch fish to make … Read more
Philippines: March, 2016 ~ Here is Ned’s Anilao Portfolio of some of his favorite photos from our recent stay at Aiyanar Beach and Dive Resort. Last year, when we visited in late spring with a group, we asked our dive guide, Kim Manzano, when his favorite season was for diving there. Being the good dive diplomat, he wouldn’t commit to a best time but advised that we’d likely see different things if we came when the water was a little … Read more
In March, we visited Fiji for the first time since 2005 – ten years – I can’t believe it had been that long! This pretty much made Fiji “new” hunting grounds for me because our last visit was long before the launch of this blog and my quest to see as many blennies as possible. I didn’t see everything I wanted during a week at Lalati Resort and a second week aboard the Nai’a liveaboard dive boat – the Lady … Read more
Dominica, February 2014 ~ Poring through the new copy of Reef Creature Identification between dives, our guides Tony and Imran mentioned that they could find Onuphis worms, specifically, an undescribed species that we had never personally seen before. Tony showed us one at the very end of a fish survey dive and in the excitement, ahem, all air was consumed from certain tanks. The site was shallow and full of other interesting things so plans were made to return the following … Read more
Here are a few more favorite Blennywatcher images from 2013. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will already have seen most of our favorite images, but some didn’t make into a post and others were published earlier this year in Alert Diver, Scuba Diving or Wetpixel. So, we’re ringing in the New Year with a few more photos from 2013, starting with this Anchor Tuskfish displaying quite a mouthful of teeth. The menacing look is quite … Read more
Here is your dose of fishy cuteness: The Signal Goby, a.k.a., Crabeye Goby, a.k.a., Twinspot Goby. Not only fun to watch, this fish has some pretty curious reproductive behavior, as we learned a few years ago. Signigobius biocellatus feeds by sand-sifting so we find them just off reefs or near shorelines in silty, nutrient-rich sand. We have seen them from Palau through Indonesia, so they aren’t really rare, but their populations are certainly not dense. Almost always found in pairs, … Read more
And a double take is just what I did when the big round eyes of this Shorthead Blenny rolled onto Ned’s laptop screen. Something wasn’t quite right with the picture so I took a second look and the image fell into place: The tiny blenny’s googly eyes were rotated backwards staring directly behind the fish’s head at Ned’s approaching camera port—a vision of visual dexterity that would make any blenny lover proud. Ned’s preoccupation with backward focused blenny eyes began … Read more
This will likely not excite any but the anoraks amongst us: Last week in Utila, I witnessed hatching West Indian Chanks (I was excited) and I can report that they are as slow when hatching as they are as adults moving across the sand. Although the word chank is often used interchangeably with conch, chanks are gastropods belonging to the family Turbinellidae, while true conchs are in the family Strombidae. Over the years, we have received several inquires about a strange … Read more
April 2013 – A nudibranch eating nudibranch – this one gives me the heebie jeebies. I know many divers who go crazy over nudibranchs the way we go crazy for blennies. Nudibranchs belong to the phylum Mollusca and share a subclass, Opisthobranchia, commonly called sea slugs. Many are beautifully colored and some are very cryptic, mimicking the things they feed upon, like coral or sponges. Brightly colored nudibranchs really stand out to us in the muck or rubble bottoms that … Read more
Ever since I attended REEF’s free online Fishinar about hamlets, presented by talented instructor/photographer Jonathan Lavan (his Underpressure photo blog ) I’ve intended to read up on the latest about hamlets. They are one of my other favorite groups of fishes (it’s not always about blennies) so I thought I’d share. Hamlets are a genus of small reef fish in the seabass family Serranidae found in western Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico waters. The first time we ever saw … Read more