Rock Swappers Club

I woke up at 3am again but instead of trying to get back to sleep again, I just got up and started working on my nudi shots.

Christianne often hosts Nudi Workshops at Villa Markisa.  That would be great to attend someday but she doesn’t have one on the books right now.  I’ll have to keep checking the website.

I got initiated into the Rock Swapping society today.  This is something that they do at Villa Markisa.  When a diver finds a cool nudi, they get it onto a rock, pick up the rock and swim it over to the next diver/photographer.  Then it’s expected that the other diver does the same when they find one.  Christianne said that at times she’d have a ton of divers on her house reef not even moving, just the rocks would… the guides would just bring divers rocks and then put them back when the photographers were done.  Kevin handed me a rock today and I didn’t really get what he was doing, so at lunch I made him explain over lunch.  I still want to know if they have a secret hand shake, theme song, uniform, etc.  J

Jayne told me to check out Uglies bathing suits today.  Whoa.  They are pretty bold.  We talked some more about her swimming.  She started at the age of 38 with a kids swim team.  She said one time they were all misbehaving and the coach made them all do a set of 10 50-fly… and she was like “Me too, coach?”… and sure enough, she did.  With all that tough coaching, she even set some Masters Swimming records in her age group!

Our dives are ridiculously long.  We go for like 85 minutes or more – and people could keep going.  It’s amazing.

Today I fried my memory card.  Boo Hoo.  I had a really good dive number 1352.  I saw no fewer than 10 nudis.  One of which was a rare Halgerda that they don’t see here much.  I’m so bummed.  You’ll see that I list a few nudis without pictures.  L  I did have it on my card but my card died.

79 - Hypselodoris maculosa

80 - Reticulidia fungia

81 - Sagaminopteron psychedelicum

Ahhhhhhh!!!  This is the holy grail of nudibranchs... and how cool is its name? 

Coming to theatres soon: The alien robo-evil villian, "Sagaminopteron pychedelicum".

The color/pattern is amazing but clearly I didn't spend enough time on it!

82 - Phyllodesmium lizardensis

83 - Phyllodesmium briareum

84 - Chelidonura pallida

85 - Phyllodesmium koehleri

86 - Thuridilla gracilis

87 - Thorunna furtiva

88 - Phestilla melanobrachia

89 - Chromodoris cf strigata

90 - Cyerce sp. 2

91 – Jorunna funebris

Don't these look like they are "Two against the world!"?

92 - Chromodoris fidelis

<missing, was on fried memory card>

93 - Halgerda sp.

<missing, was on fried memory card>

94 - Chromodoris reticulata

I took this one later on the trip.

95 - Nembrotha yonowae

<missing, was on fried memory card>

96 - Phyllidia ocellata

97 - Tritonia bollandi

So intricate.

98 - Doto sp.

Laying eggs.

99 - Polybranchia orientalis

100 - Philinopsis cyanea

There were many of these on the night dive.  They are as big as a loaf of bread.  There were several couples mating and they had different color variations.

101 - Discodoris cebuensis