Monday, September 14, 2015

A drop is a flood

I still have ten days to go on my vacation.  That feels so incredible!

Today we are leaving at 6:30 to dive the Liberty Wreck.  There are supposed to be Humphead Parrotfish on the wreck this early.

We saw the weirdest thing on the wreck this morning.  Other divers.  Seriously, we haven’t seen any other divers underwater all week.  We are so spoiled.

Oh no!!! At the end of the second dive, one of my strobes flooded!!!  As I was coming up, I saw some bubbles coming out of my strobe.  Bernard had me take it apart on the boat right away.  The batteries were oozing acid everywhere and it was so disgusting.  We got them out, rinsed the well with fresh water and trying to clean out the gunk.

We put rubbing alcohol on it and scrubbed out any corrosion, rinsed it and let it dry.

A little bit before the afternoon dive, I put in some batteries and after an initial concern that the light didn’t come on right away… it did after 10 seconds.  Success!
It seems to be working again.  Whew.  I’m a lucky girl.

I wondered if I should let it dry out first and not take it on a dive or two.  Graham’s answer was no!  You should never go into a dive “half cocked”.  Always go "fully cocked" with fresh batteries and ready for action.  Hmmmmm….

Graham gave a little presentation over lunch and showed us some rare things to look for here.  Super cool.  We’ll see if we find any.

Holy crap we saw so may things on the night dive… but our dive guide was like yelling underwater with his dive light.  He was so insistent waving it so fast like “come here right now.  Right now right now right now!!!”

Here are some cool things we saw on the night dive:
Two Goniobranchus aureopurpureus with an imperial shrimp on them


Then three different nudibranchs together - Hypselodoris sp. 14 and a Hypselodoris apolegma that look like they are "nursing" a larger Doriprismatica atromarginata.


Hypselodoris sp. 17 and while I was trying to photograph it, I got photo bombed by the vertical catfish mob!!!


The very last thing was a pom pom crab.  I waited patiently while Jim shot it.  When it was my turn, he couldn’t find it!!!  Wahhhh!!!  He totally owes me a pom pom crab.  ;(

Bernard collected a few nudis and we looked at them under the microscope.  Everyone was super into it and we were amazed by the detail.  We could see their little mouths munching and hearts beating.  So cool!!!




Here is what we were looking at:
http://www.diving4images.com/gallery/galleries-by-species/unknown-rare-species/#/
See "totally unknown species from Bali".

Here are the new nudis I saw today:

239 - Diversidoris crocea

240 - Copodaspis thompsoni


241 - Unknown (tiny see through rhinophores with bulb bumps and white cerata with a yellowish tint)


242 - Unknown (white whispy with orange tinted striated rhinophores and lavendar rings on the cerata)


243 - Favorinus cf. tsuruganus (white body yellow cerata with black tips, not as full as a normal one)


244 - Eubranchus sp. 2


245 - Favorinus pacificus


246 - Unknown inside a tunicate (might be a flatworm?)


247 - Favorinus mirabilis (peach coloring)


248 - Noalda sp. 2 (with maroon and orange stripe)


249 - Eubranchus sp. 4


250 - Stilliger sp. (clear cerata with a greenish tint and white at the tips - long rhinophores with a black stripe down the center - two primative eyes at the base)


251 - Eubranchus sp. (very tiny with clear/white coloring and brown squiggles in the cerata)


252 - Arminia cf. semperi


253 - Dermatobranchus sp. 12


254 - Phyllodesmium iriomotense


255 - Doto sp. E


256 - Notobryon wardi

Dave Behrens thinks this is one of the Crosslandia's... but it was also suggested this was a Notobryon wardi and this looks more like it.

257 - Hypselodoris zephra


258 - Hypselodoris sp. 17


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