The Third Critter Post
Posted on Jun 05, 2008 by bruce_moore
As of mid-May, the seasonal winds known as the South East Monsoon kicked up a month earlier than expected. Considering the unpredictability of recent weather patterns I can't say that it was surprising and we enjoyed tangible benefits as these winds tend to initiate more critter sightings. The water temperature and visibility remained stable though I expect that to change over the next month or two. By late May, robust, delicate and ornate ghost pipefish were being seen daily after months of only occasional encounters. Robust ghost pipefish are now exceptionally common, being seen almost every dive. Only male ornate gp were being seen until a pair was spotted at Air Prang 3 at the end of May, with the female already laden with eggs.
With no swell from the north we have started to dive the island-side sites, refamiliarizing ourselves after months away. One new site has been quite good - a place I had done survey dives on years ago, but hadn't returned to until two weeks ago. Another white sand site, it's much like Pantai Parigi in that it is good for small crustaceans and we have seen a few special things there: a bright orange estuarine stonefish and a bright orange flasher scorpionfish along with a tiny ambon scorpionfish and there are two mimic octopus there as well; we enjoyed spending time with both of them on our last jump there.
We are seeing tiny juvenile frogfish all over in various forms and colours including an orange hairy one and a white one with red dots. As for adults, there aren't many hairy (striated) or clown (warty) frogfish around, but we're finding numerous painted and giant froggies. Just on our House Reef at Black Sand Dive Retreat I've seen three giant, one clown and two painted frogs during the last week.
On the Black Sand Dive Retreat house reef I still find the largest of the three pacific monkeyfish I wrote about recently, but the two smaller ones have escaped my detection over the past few weeks. We've seen starry night octopus (O. luteus), a juvenile bamboo shark, a dayglo orange Inimicus devilfish, plenty of cuttlefish and squid in various sizes, ornate ghost pipefish, stonefish and, of course, much more.
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