Our friend Nemo.
With diving back on the agenda we have been making the most of it, things are so uncertain at the moment here and around the globe that we are not taking our "new" found freedom for granted. We recognize that as with many other places we could find ourselves back on lock down were we to suffer a outbreak in the area.
To negate this many new things have been put in place, limited numbers of people in the centre, foot baths, hand wash stations, social distancing and disinfecting all scuba gear after every use.
Keep it clean folks.
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The wife Koz is keeping her self busy with student Kaiden who is slowly working his way from novice to dive pro over the next couple of months. He joined Koz on a class back in February with the intention of doing many courses but lockdown happened and scuppered his plans. He sat it out and now is back working his way through various courses. Here Koz is briefing Kaiden (tattoo's) and Chris on night diving techniques, these are skills they will need when they become dive masters.
DMT's in chilled lesson.
Yesterday we all went for a dive together as Kaiden needs to clock up more dives before starting his divemaster course. With no skills to practice this was purely for fun
but of course every time you enter the water you are developing your overall ability. Today we are taking the boat to Lo-Oc which means small bay in Visayan, it's a few minutes ride north of the dive centre.
So into the blue we go lets see what we can spot out on the reef, this is something that as a dive master you need to become good at, the main tasks of the job are to guide divers safely and point out critters they may miss.
Lets get wet!
Every time we dive here we never know what to expect, some fish have a territory that they defend so we generally find them in the same spots but we also have a enormous shoal of sardines that put on a different display daily and often get whale sharks passing by. Big or small though the amount of different species is amazing and after diving here for years it still feels new whenever I drop down below the surface.
Well already at the top of the post is Nemo the anemone fish, but who else awaits us?
Bearded scorpion fish.
These chaps are covered in poisonous spine that protect them from predators, the can be quite harmful to humans so always approach with caution. That said unless bothered the tend to lay super still waiting for their prey of small fish to pass within range, then with a sudden blast of power they strike.
Squat shrimp.
These little cuties make their home in anemones, it's a symbiotic relationship where the shrimp works as house keeper and in return gets to scavenge on scraps of food it find within the anemone. These can be small bits of fish, algae and even dead parts of the anemone itself.
Pipe fish.
The Network or reef pipefish is a close relative to the sea horse, it's pretty much a straight seahorse but it has other family members that differ much more such as the......
Ornate ghost pipefish.
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Not everything we see is quite as pretty when we dive, there is the unfortunate problem of waste making it's way into our oceans. This is a problem world wide but the Philippines sits a number 3 in the ocean polluting nations chart, not a award anyone wants. There is a drive towards change here but it will take a cultural shift and probably a couple of generations before we see a major improvement in attitude towards the environment.
Message in a bottle.
Well there was no message in this bottle but the message would read take me home don't throw waste into the sea. When we dive we consider ourselves custodians of the reef so when we see waste we generally remove it but over time I have learned it's not always that easy.
Often as was the case with this bottle it had started to become part of the reef also it was half full of sand and had little critters living inside. Now if it were plastic I would empty it carefully and remove but glass is no problem for the environment as it is after all melted sand, in another year this will be fully encrusted and a home to shrimps or other macro lifeforms.
It's a difficult balancing act as to have removed it I would damage the coral it is now fused to and that is a living thing and also risk killing the inhabitants of the bottle, how ever small they may be they have their place.
Lets finish on a brighter note with one of my favorite things to see on a dive. This is a green turtle one of the many we have in the area. Moalboal is blessed with one of the largest populations of turtles I have encountered in my many years of diving and you can't help but smile every time you come face to face with one of these stunning creatures. This fellow is quite big so possibly as old as me so as we look at each other I get to thinking what it has seen in it's lifetime.
Hero in a half shell.
Well that was a eventful dive lots of nice things spotted and with the lack of people here at the moment almost a strange feel about it, not seeing any other divers in the water.
Hope you can join me on a dive again soon, if not never fear @biggypauls will always have his camera to record the events, until next time stay safe folks.
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You're welcome @biggypauls👍
Amazing underwater photos!
@tipu curate
Upvoted 👌 (Mana: 18/45)
Thanks dude, always happy when someone likes my efforts.
It's nice to see underwater images on Hive, not so many of us do!. Really nice photos. Try my #Seaphotography contest if you have time. ;-)