CRITTER DIVER
57 divErwant to interrupt photographing a
frogfish to stalk a couple of large blacktip
sharks patrolling at the limit of visibility?
A safety stop at Jalan Musak II provides
an easier decision to head out into the blue
among a shoal of batfish that have spent
the whole dive patrolling above us.
I had tried to get close to them at the
start of the dive and they were timid, so
I go back to the reef for a peacock mantis
shrimp and the novelty of a colony of
coral-burrowing hermit crabs. By the end
of the dive the batfish above are so used to
our noisy bubbles rising past them that
I can get right in among them.
Back at the jetty, the tide is out. With
low-water springs and a 2m tidal range,
the shallow corals poke well out of the
water. Looking down from the jetty, reef-
fish can be seen trapped in pools.
Millions of years of evolution mean that
they’re used to it.
I’m four days into my stay before I get
to dive the house reef. On previous
afternoons we have taken the boat out
because either the tide was too low or
current was swirling round the bay, and
both combined to mess up the visibility.
It might be a good house reef, but it
isn’t always the best option.F
OR THE EASIEST WAYto dive it, we
have left our dive-gear on the boat
from the morning dives. We walk down
the jetty, step into the boat, kit up and fall
off the other side. The end of the jetty is
built out to the reef crest, so the beam of
the boat puts us a few metres further out
over deeper water.
A giant moray eel tucked under the first
coral-head is almost a forgotten bystander
compared to the residents of a gorgonian
on the other side of the rock, and even that
provides a choice: on one side a pair of
ornate ghost pipefish, on the other a pair
of Schultz’s pipefish.
Big barrel sponges are host to barrel-
sponge squat lobsters; tiny, purple and
hairy. At some locations they hide away
and take patience to find. On the dive-sites
some barrel sponges are infested withsquat lobsters. If only the pushy speckled
hawkfish would stop photo-bombing as
I try to line up on these hairy photogenic
cuties!
Another cutie on the house reef is a
yellow coral crab. I wouldn’t expect to see
a crab like this in the open in daylight,
but late in the afternoon it’s getting dingy
enough for it to sit happily on its yellow
tunicate and pretend I haven’t seen it
while I flash away. In fact I wonder if it’s
just a carcass, until it eventually moves.I
AM CONSTANTLYamused by how
divers react to the way creatures
prevalent in some places are rare in others.
I bet the first diver to see a lionfish off
Florida was excited to see it. Here a
lionfish is not that common, but I can’t
really be bothered.
Yet an arrow crab is worth some time,
even though at a glance I can’t tell it from
the arrow crabs prevalent in places such as
the Canary Islands.
Spending an hour at 12-15m, I suppose
we could have ventured further than the
small area of sandy slope and coral-heads
we cover on the dive, but there is no need.
After such a shallow dive a 5m safety
stop is hardly necessary, but I treat it as an
opportunity to continue spotting
nudibranchs right up until we surface
back beside the boat.
The easy exit is up the boat-ladder and
back onto the jetty. So do I classify this as
a shore-dive or a boat-dive in my logbook?
What excites a critter-hunting diver
more than a tiny critter? A tiny critter on
a critter. Being pedantic, most marine life
are animals and such a description could
equally apply to pygmy seahorses on
gorgonians and many more of the usual
suspects, so perhaps I should say critters
on critters on critters, or critters on
critters that move.
Yellow and orange emperor shrimps on
sea-cucumbers are almost commonplace,
but tiny blue emperor shrimps on blue
starfish bring a different perspective, and
an orange emperor shrimp on the spotted
green nose of a crested nembrotha ☛Above: Gorgonians on
the wall.
Left: Frogfish.
Below left: Giant moray
eel.
Below: Longnose hawkfish.
Bottom: Yellow coral crab.
Bottom right: Dive-boat.