Nudi Gal: Nudis Galore

And today we dive.

Around 3:30am, I wandered over to the central lounge and set about finding a way to turn on the lights and make coffee… since I was the first one up.

I reviewed the Nudibranchs from the last time I was here. I found 160 of them. I will have my work cut out for me. Even though I am staying like twice as long, I won’t have Graham spotting them for me.

This guy named Chris who works at one of the local pearl farms came diving with us. He and Max went off to take pictures. I got my own guide named Kinnear and Reilly went with Cheryl. Judy overslept and did not dive today.

I got a terrible headache during my second dive. I think I had my mask on too tight. The weather was kinda rainy on the way back.

Lunch was good. HUGE prawns and the sweet eggplant/aubergine. So good.

On the third dive, I went with my 7mm wetsuit. It was so hard to get on. I did OK in it for most of the dive but at the end it was hard to stay down. After I got out of the water, I had another headache and just felt gross. So I opted for not doing a house reef dive. It was just too much.

Dinner was again fabulous, but a circada decided to fly into my head during the meal. It freaked me out a little. It hit hard!

After dinner I noticed that the “Nudibranchs” part of rubber sole on my flip flop fell off. There goes another pair. But it’s about time. These were special flip flops that when I walked on the beach I left behind the words "More" and then "Nudibranchs". I loved them, but they didn't leave the imprint as often as I thought they would. I will wear them the rest of this trip, and then they are not coming home with me. By the way, the humor is not lost on me that now they just say “More”.

I accidentally brought the older version of the Nudibranch ID book, so I’ll have to check these names when I get back… but to the best of my knowledge, here is what I saw today. 28 Species in just three dives.

1 - Phyllidiella pustulosa

2 - Favorinus japonicus

3 - Janolus sp. 1

4 - Flabellina exoptata

5 - Hypselodoris tryoni

I also included this photo because these two are slime trailing each other. One has lavender parasites in its gills and the other has little orange dots. And their spots seem to be different colors.

6 - Phyllidiella annulata

7 - Doriprismatica balut

8 - Samla riwo

9 - Costasiella sp. 5

This is the Shawn the Sheep nudi. I'll get a better picture of it soon.

10 - Phyllidiella granulata

11 - Phyllidiella lizae

12 - Plakobranchus ocellatus

13 - Goniobranchus albonares

14 - Pteraeolidia semperi

15 - Phyllidia varicosa

16 - Thuridilla gracilis

17 - Hypselodoris maculosa

18 - Phyllodesmium longicirrum

This is what they call the solar nudi because it ingests algae into its cerata and then produces its own food. Here's a cool article about it from Lembeh Resort:

https://www.lembehresort.com/resort/solar-powered-nudibranch/

19 - Hexabranchus sanguineus