Nudi Gal: April 2016

Friday, April 8, 2016

Record Breakers Party, Nudi Style

This is the last day of diving. We are only doing the two morning dives.

Nice dives. Not that much special… but we did see a bubble shell! There was a little bit of current and Bree lost her nudi hood. L

Bree has taken to calling Dave “Grandpa Nudi”.

The last few new nudis:

187 - Trapania palmula

188 - Micromelo undatus

189 - Favorinus sp. 3

190 - Plocamopherus lemur

The group had a big blowout about the Group Photo of all things. Bree had to run to the pharmacy to get some eyedrops and said not to wait for her. Then Lindz really wanted to. But we had scheduled it for 3pm. People moved slowly down to the deck and when we were all together, Bree made it but Lindz didn’t.

The last night we had a nice party with a delicious nudi cake.

Francis made a nice video with an underwater point and shoot camera that doesn’t need a housing.

https://youtu.be/eyaW8m59XYU

Gave Dave a signed T-Shirt from all of us.

190 unique nudibranch species for me.

Although there were soooo many more found: 451 for Session 2 and 591 for the overall Slug Fest count!

I did 36 dives on this trip which brings me to 1646 lifetime dives.

Until Raja Ampat in November!

Thursday, April 7, 2016

Hallow Hallow

Today Dave told us that sometimes the only way to tell the difference in Nudibranch identification is to look at the teeth. Ha! What are we going to do? Tell the nudi to open wide?

Dave says that while trying to identify nudis, look for the similarities, not the differences!

Dave gave presentation about nudibranch art. Pretty cool stuff.

Mike keeps telling us to take our photos at the “Peak of the Action”!

During morning surface interval – Mike bought us these drinks from the local town. They were so weird. Like a milkshake kinda with green jello, corn, beans, mango, red chewy things in it. It’s called Hallow Hallow which literally means mix-mix.

I asked Mike to come speak to Chicago SCUBA Meetup and/or Shedd Aquarium and he said he’d love to!

We found Melibe colemani on the house reef – there were three in total!

Jim was walking around humming “Rudolph the red nosed reindeer”. I couldn’t figure out why he was singing Christmas songs… but then I realized he was taking the piss out of me, that I had my usual sun soaked red nose. Ugh. It’s so annoying. No matter how much sunscreen I put on it, I still get the red nose.

Pirjot finally found her Calinga ornata at the Town Pier. That’s the #1 reason why she came on this trip. They were all out of air when they found it, but they did get a few shots! (I didn't see it.)

There is a free t-shirt that comes with the workshop but it’s a boxy men’s cut. We keep designing how we are going to cut up the t-shirts so they look better on women.

Nudis for today:

179 - Hypselodoris sp. 23

180 - Noumea romeri

181 - Thuridilla albopustulosa

182 - Melibe colemani

183 - Hexabranchus sanguineus

184 - Marionia arborescens

185 - Gymnodoris aurita

186 - Pleurobranchus varians

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Bubbles and Butterflies

On the second dive camera read “no card” which is weird because on the first dive it worked just fine! Luckily, I could still read the pictures from the first dive. Some of the pictures below are from Lindz since I couldn't get my camera to work.

Dave did cover himself in crinoids on dive 2. I got pictures and video of it on my Go Pro.

I was on the dive with Dave Behrens when we found the Chromodoris dianae… which he named after his ex-wife. He tried to give it to her on Valentine’s Day (via a newspaper reporter announcing the news), but she said she’d much rather have diamonds.

On the afternoon dive we went to a site called Bubbles. It was bubbling up everywhere and in this one spot, Glenn had us put our hand down and it was so HOT, I couldn’t even hold it there!

I found a Phyllodesmium longcirrium. Not only is this a beautiful nudi, this one was HUGE. I had to go up 10 feet just to get it all in frame! This nudi contains photosynthetic zooxanthellae, which allows it to draw energy from sunlight. Many people call it the solar powered nudi.

The resort ran out of diet coke at dinner!!! I was beside myself, but luckily I had some pink lemonade.

Today marked Bree’s 300th dive!

Kevin came with us on the night dive and there was some current.

We saw a huge patch of Cyrce Elegans and they flitted about like butterflies. I was able to get one all to myself and photograph it.

New Nudis today:

168 - Thorunna halourga

169 - Chromodoris dianae

170 - Reticulidia halgerda

This is Lindz' picture since my card couldn't be read.

171 - Nembrotha mullineri

Courtesy of Lindz.

172 - Diversidoris crocea

Courtesy of Lindz.

173 - Phyllidia polkadotsa

Courtesy of Lindz. I was so proud of myself that I found this one!!!

174 - Goniobranchus kunei

175 - Phyllodesmium longicirrum

176 - Cyerce elegans

177 - Armina sp. 7

178 - Marionia sp. 15

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Hypselodoric Oath

Before we got on the boat for the first dive, we had Dave take the “Hypselodoric Oath” to not come up from the dive looking like Chewbacca (covered with crinoids).

https://youtu.be/1AP8Rpee9bc

I do think we really need to get a nudi gavel for rulings on important identifications!

On our first dive with Dave, we dropped right in to find a Gymnodoris sp. 6 eating a Glossodoris cincta. It was super cool!!!

Dave said that this species is still undescribed and that the Gymnodorises are all messed up and tough to figure out.

We surpassed the first Slugfest Group’s count of species today. Woo Hoo!!!

Today is declared “Open Wide Day” – Had both a frogfish and a melibe open their mouth for me on the afternoon dive.

I took video of walking up the 83 stairs from beach to my room with Go Pro.

https://youtu.be/pQiQtUKsHec

We also found a Janolus sp.7 with just one rhinophore. Maybe we should call it Janolus unicorni?