Black Sand House Reef Report - Nov 09
Posted on Nov 30, 2009 by bruce_moore
Since the last Black Sand House Reef Report, much has changed, as expected. Fall brings change, with October usually the critter-heaviest month on the calendar, but in November the warmer water, jellyfish migrations and the start of the serious rains cause a dent in critter numbers (though November is usually the best month of the year for octopus; especially the odd species, but more on that later, in the following Critter Post).
The "Hot Spot" on our House Reef - a section of slope between 12 and 18 meters - was providing superb diving through October, but then that particular location went cold. I did a dusk dive and found a wonderpus, a small veined octo (see photo), a pygmy cuttlefish and a few other things in the third week of the month, but within two days I was finding, literally, nothing a that exact spot. Odd.
Most of the attached snapshots are from that section, taken over October and early November. I put in a shot of one of the pygmy pipehorses that Soleman found in the shallows (and I saw another one recently at Pantai Parigi). Being so slender they are maddening to shoot; almost impossible for autofocus to deal with. Luckily there are more amenable critters about.
One cool thing I found was hermit crab releasing her offspring. I've put in two shots of that. A few days later I was looking at pictures from a guest who had shot the same action, though a different crab, and he thought that the particles were stirred-up sediment, though he decided not to delete the shot after I told him to zoom in and I pointed out the eye-spots on his "backscatter".
I have included a photo of the ultra cool "horned slug" mentioned in the last post. Found by John Todt, he was kind enough to send a snap. Recently I saw one for myself on a night dive at Jari Jari. It is an undescribed species of Philinopsis.
Still plenty of devilfish, stingfish, rays and eels around. A sprinkling of frogfish, including a resident clown froggie seen by many. No monkeyfish since mid-October, last seen by some sharp-eyed Swiss guests out paddling around on their own. There are a few ghost pipefish left in the strait as they are all thinning out as the water warms out. We have a black pair still in residence and see the odd juvenile or robust pipefish, though very few into November. We are still finding a few big common seahorses and a splendid big green pipehorse in the shallows.
Not bad at all.
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