Another slow F1 weekend at Hantu

September 25, 2011

Octopus, two handfuls of Snakey bornella nudibranches, schools of Yellow stripe scad, rabbitfish, fusillers, batfish, and Silver moonies. A weekend of diving at Pulau Hantu had everyone surfacing with smiles and many pictures!

What do we do when Formula cars are spinning around town at 120 decibels? We submerge ourselves. But it didn’t prove to be as quiet as we’d thought, there were some piling works going on along the fairway between Pulau Hantu and Pulau Semakau. While on our first dive, we thought someone had sounded the emergency dive cancelling signal so we all went up, only to realise that the clanging sound was coming from a ship several hundred meters away.

It was just awesome how bright and lively the reef looked today. The reefs have been less turbid than we’re used to for the past five months. That’s almost half a year, but we’ve been diving these reefs for eight years, and all of us are used to lower visibilities. I guess because of the high turbidity we’re used to experiencing over the years, we’re very grateful for conditions like today, where we can experience the reef in all its glory and share photographs like this with you.

A Fan-bellied filefish swims along Hantu’s reefs.

Gorgeous gorgonians (seafans) and whip corals. Yes! This is their original colour. Isn’t that just mind blowing?! Each of those little feathery protrusions are single animals or polyps that are reaching out to sift food from the water that’s being moved by the current.

There were plenty of Phyllidia sea slugs, some of them even formed small clusters upon rocks on the reef.

Evidently, there were also plenty of fish! Clockwise from the top: Star puffer and Seagrass filefish, Kite butterflyfish, Six-banded angelfish, Yellow-spot rabbitfish, and Longnose butterflyfish.

Today’s special was the Snakey bornella. Divers were served as many as TEN individuals of this mesmerising creature. I saw a little one (left) that I measured against my index finger, and a huge palm-sized one that was too busy munching on hydroids to be bothered with me. Those white bits in front of its face are its mouth parts. Cool huh?! I got a video too so we can all gawk and stare at how this fella eats. Stay tuned for the video.

There were plenty more nudibranches that were decked all over the reef… but there was one that was particularly beautiful. But you’ll have to come to this blog another day to see what it is. Or check-in at The Hantu Bloggers Facebook Group to get the headsup first!

As divers ascended from their second dive, we saw this small school of Long-finned batfish hanging out just below the water’s surface. The one on the bottom seems to have its fins rather tattered. I wonder what snagged it.

Of course these aren’t all the pictures from today’s dive. We have videos too! Sit tight for more stuff coming up over the next couple of days/weeks! Meantime, check out our Gallery for more cool stuff!

 

 

Posted in Biology, Blog Log, Photography