More diving... — Lisa's (& Steve's) Travels

I did tell you that this was a diving trip, didn’t I? I chose Anilao for both the tiny critters, as well as the chance to do Blackwater diving. This is done after dark in 300-600 ft of water! A lighted buoy is tossed overboard, with very bright lights attached to a line beneath it at 15 ft intervals, down to 60 ft. You then float at your chosen depth to see (and hopefully photograph) the weird and larval creatures that come up from the depths. I couldn’t get stills under these conditions, but I was able to capture several neat videos, as did Steve. As usual, be sure to open this post in your browser or click the link at the end, to be able to watch the videos.

It really felt like we were floating in space, and just watching for neat things to swim through our light beams. Steve filmed me hunting, so you can have some sense of the experience. And no, it wasn’t scary. You just have to be an advanced diver able to maintain your buoyancy without visual clues (like the bottom).

I have no idea what this is, but I loved its shimmy -

The next one definitely resembled a spaceship to me -

An Argonaut (also called a Paper Nautilus) is a pelagic (open sea) octopus. They live near the surface and are commonly found attached to leaves or sticks. Their shells are used to trap air and brood eggs. The first video is mine, and the second is Steve’s (he slowed it down so you might catch its movement a little better) -

Two more videos, and then I’ll move away from the Blackwater. The first resembles long line fishing…

… while the second turned out to be a short, spontaneous variety show -

I was just so thrilled with my camera, both with the clarity of the stills as well as of the videos. Previously, I had always used Steve’s videos to show the action and behavior that I couldn’t capture with stills. My camera is best for the little things close up, and it performs exceptionally well on video - if I can hold still, which is easier said than done when swimming or fighting currents.

That guy above was the best posed and most visible specimen I had ever seen! I bet you can easily figure out how it got its name.

Sometimes anemones ball up and leave little room for the resident “clown fish” to hang out -

This was the only Cuttlefish we saw in 10 days -

On a night dive in a mucky shallow bay, we found this little octopus gliding along -

Can you spot the Crinoid Shrimp in the next picture?

The Warty Frogfish was not worried about camouflage…

… nor was he in a hurry -

We’ve seen large schools of Striped Catfish before, but we had never seen this activity - churning up the sand, leaving a cloud surrounding and behind them. Check out the placid response of the Flounder at the beginning -

I think this was my favorite type of nudi because it’s big enough for me to find on my own (4 - 5 inches), and it was so colorful -

Now, this Ornate Goby says Enough! Goodbye!