Fish are Uncooperative - Grand Bogue and Johnny’s Wrench

Last full day of diving and we are dropping like flies. A cold is making its rounds on the boat and several people are having ear and sinus problems. We are (deafly and subsequently loudly) arguing as to whether it is from the air conditioning or the communal rinse bucket for masks. Either way, the number of divers is steadily depleting.

Despite being a veritable fountain of mucus and snot, I’m still in the running and participated in our first dive of the day - Grand Bogue. It’s a sand channel running over a coral ledge to the sea wall.

First we spotted... a spotted drum! They're pretty rare and really fun to watch. They swim in repetitive patterns and are mostly active night feeders, so it was strange to see it out swimming in figure eights during the day. They get their names from the thudding or drumming noise they make by beating their little fish abs against their swim bladder.

Cool sponge family

Sand diver

Cool sand tilefish that went ZIP ZORP* and completely disappeared under the sand.

*not authentic sound effects

Pederson cleaner shrimp 

Slender filefish 

Arrow crab

A different type of shrimp I couldn't identify

A tiny squat anemone shrimp

Mask flooding with unmanageable amounts of snot bubbling from my sinuses, it was a very uncomfortable safety stop and surfacing processes. YUCK!

But it didn't stop me from jumping back in for the afternoon dives back at Johnny's Wrench. I never did find out why it was called Johnny's Wrench. There's quite a bit around Lighthouse Reef Atoll named after the mysterious Johnny... I dedicated these afternoon dives to taking more photos of fish. I often forget to take pictures of fish for a few reasons. Besides the fact that fish are kind of a-hole photography subjects (skittish and fast are terrible qualities in a subject) and I usually only get photos of fish butts, when you see a creature in abundance sometimes you overlook it. So here are the very few, somewhat cooperative fish I spotted on the reef.

 Sharpnosed puffer

 Brain coral

Cool feathered turnicate thingy

 Angry, chirping Threespot Damselfish

 Fairy Basslet

Damselfish all chrip or click at you if you get too close to their homes. They're quite fierce protectors of their spot on the reef and will often barrel out of hiding to ward of much larger would-be invaders.

 Red lionfish - it's mostly white colouring leads me to believe it is a juvenile.

Fully grown red lionfish have predominantly reddish brown bands.

Uncooperative baby trunkfish

 White-spotted toadfish with his toaders out toading.

Sadly, it's time for our last night dive. One last chance to spot the nocturnal creatures occupying the reef! And it turned out to be a pretty spectacular last dive as we found all our nighttime favourites one last time.

 Can you spot the spotted moray?

Night diving isn't that scary when there aren't turtles lurking about... Or upon turning around, when you nearly bump into this spiky little guy. Or he nearly bumped into me. I said sorry like a good Canadian before enjoying his laughable antics.



Scanning carefully over the reef, we found a spectacular lettuce slug out on display.

 

I tried a different lighting technique for the heck of it and started putting fish in the spotlight. It was fun and I like a few of the shots!

Another big white-spotted toadfish. You can see his spectacled pectoral fins and eely butt pretty well in this shot! Despite their squat fishy face, they have long, slender tails with strong fins along the top - kind of like an eel's body.

Just before doing our safety stop, I had a fun time floating around and watching this blue-eyed hermit crab crabbin' it up with his crabbers.

That's it for the night diving this trip! However, we're doing an extra early wake up tomorrow morning for a pre-dawn dive. It promises to be an interesting crossover as the nocturnal, diurnal and crepuscular will all be active, whether just waking up or settling into sleep like us. Good night!