165 Nudis in One Minute

OK, to be honest, I’m about done.  This four dives a day thing is started to get me REALLY tired.  Ten days of this is just about right.  I’m not sure how I ever did two back to back trips this intense.

I do want to get up to 100 dives this year though.  That’s always my goal.  I hit 36 on this trip.  I guess I need to do two more this year to hit that goal.  Sadly, I don’t have anything else on the books yet.  I need to get on that!

Our last two dives were at Kirby Rock and Old Beth… our two favorite places.

I only got two new nudis, but it was so fun and a great way to end the diving.

Our final counts and photos for the slideshow were due by 3pm when we also had a group photo taken.

Then I took a NAP.  I had been dying to take an afternoon nap for the whole trip and I finally got to.  When the alarm went off at 5:30pm, I was in shock.  I could have slept many more hours!

I put together a one minute slideshow of the 165 nudis I saw on this trip and showed Mike.  He asked me what I used to put it together and I told him Lightroom.  He quickly put one together for all of the guest photos.  I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks!  I thought Mike knew everything about Photoshop/Lightroom.  I feel honored to have taught him the little slideshow trick.

It was fun to see everything people shot.  We had some fruity drinks and recounted some stories from the week, but I was still so tired, I just hit they hay a little early.

164 - Eubranchus sp. A

165 - Pleurobranchus albiguttatus

166 - Dermatobranchus fortunatus

So that’s all folks!  166* nudis.  36 dives bringing me up to 1717 lifetime dives.

* At the end of the trip, I only had 165 but after reviewing slug id's I was able to identify one additional!

Here is my video:

https://youtu.be/qAiT15UblX0

Here are the group stats:

I’m so grateful to live this life and can’t wait for the next adventure… wherever that may take me!

Selfie Bombs

I chatted with Gordon again in the morning.  This time about his B&B and some of his nudi finds.  He recommended the Kalimaya Dive Resort in Indonesia – West Komodo (area liveaboards don’t take people to).

We decided that the Gymnodoris is the Caligula of the Nudibranch world.  It eats other nudibranchs AND the bigger one usually eats the smaller one (of its own species) after mating!!!!

Jim introduced us to a little song he and his dive buddies sing before rolling into a dive.  I did my best to capture it:

https://youtu.be/aRybOd3erVE

There was talk about Papua New Guinea on the boat.  Chartan is an operation a lot of nudibranchers went on recently.

Today we had some strong current on the first dive.  On the second dive we found a HUGE Phyllidia varicosa and as I went to take a selfie with it, Pirjo get her head down next to me so we took a double selfie!  And then AFTER reviewing the photos I noticed that Chad photobombed us.  Hilarious.

Dave was wearing a white rashguard with a blue nudibranch painted on it.  With his white hair and blue eyes in that shirt he looks like some kind of nudi superhero!

On the afternoon we saw MATING Miamira Alleni!  Whoa.  That picture was so big I had to back waaaay up to take it.  The dive lasted 103 minutes.  Super cool.

We saw the biggest and the smallest Miamiras today.  On the morning dive at Apple, we saw a Miamira miamirana which was almost as big as a football.  And then on the night dive at the house reef, we saw a Miamira sinuate which was smaller than my fingernail.

156 -Miamira miamirana

157 - Hypselodoris reidi

158 - Platydoris pulchra

159 - Hypselodoris sp. 17

160 - Halgerda dalanghita

161 - Thorunna furtiva

162 - Miamira sinuata

163 - Discodoris boholensis

The Great Grilled Cheese Caper

This is the first day it rained.  Big time.  During both the afternoon and evening dives it downpoured really hard with lightning and thunder.  After the dive Francis and Chad were dancing in the rain on the dive deck.  It was pretty funny.

Chad and I started to make up a song to Menomenon.

The Nudibranch

So cute and little

The Nudibranch

So colorful

The Nudibranch

We like to find ‘em

And shoot ‘em

Here in Anilao

I started the Great Grilled Cheese Caper.  For lunch I requested a grilled cheese (the night before) and about halfway through the meal they brought it out.  I was the envy of the table and I told them I just asked for it.

At dinner, everyone started ordering a grilled cheese.  I asked them to bring out the peanut butter and bread and made a PB & Banana sandwich.

Then Mike had to come tell the table that custom orders would be an extra charge.  Whoopsie.  Shame on me.

145 -Doriprismatica sibogae

146 - Hypselodoris iacula

147 - Thorunna daniellae

148 - Moridilla brockii

149 - Kabeiro christianae

I identified this originally as Eubranchus sp. A.  Jim was saying that this may be Hermea sp. B instead.  Pirjo thinks this is Kabeiro christianae.  I actually think Pirjo is right based on the photo in the iBook.

150 - Ceratosoma sp. 1

151 - Hypselodoris sp. 7

152 - Trapania toddi

153 - Janolus sp. 8

154 - Tritonia sp. 4

155 - Tenellia sp. 3

Princess Pam

I actually slept in past 5am this morning.  Whoa that’s amazing.

We are leaving a little early this morning so we can go to Kirby Rock again.  Awesome!  We also loved Sepoc Gardens… so much so that we are begging to go there FIRST tomorrow morning.

I switched out my housing since the shutter was sticking a little.  I went back to the original one which just got serviced and it seems to be working really well.  The shutter is smoooooth.

Our boat is totally gelling.  We have a good vibe going and are hunting like crazy.  Glenn, our divemaster is so great.

We saw the Princess Pam boat go by on our safety stop.  It looks like it was a little fishing boat.  Then we played the question game where everyone got to ask a question: Favorite ice cream, Favorite alcoholic beverage, Favorite meal.

We loved our morning dives and the night dive.  The afternoon dive was really slow for ¾ of it, but it picked up at the end.

127 - Verconia norba

128 - Aegires sp. 8

129 - “Taringa” halgerda

130 - Noalda sp. 1

I originally identified this as Philine orientalis (already in the iBook), but Pirjo thinks this should be Noalda sp. 1 (not yet in the iBook).

131 - Hypselodoris apolegma

132 - Thorunna punicea

133 - Aegires sp. 6

134 - Phyllodesmium koehleri

135 - Hexabranchus sanguineus

136 - Facelinid sp. 3

137 - Marionia arborescens

138 - Goniobranchus aureopurpureus

139 - Phyllodesmium jakobsenae

140 - Oxynoe viridis

141 - Ardeadoris egretta

142 - Caloria sp. 1

143 - Unknown (Phyllodesmium of some sort with brown forward facing cerata- even Dave doesn't know - he wants to email it to Teri)

144 - Phyllodesmium crypticum