Nudi Gal: November 2023

Thursday, November 30, 2023

Dolphin Escorts

I woke up really early and worked on identifying my nudis. I only had a couple for Pirjo to review.

I got a little out of breath on the first dive with some current. I even showed Nikko my PSI at 1000 since we were still down kinda deep. He showed me exactly where the boat was though and I felt pretty comfortable.

During our surface interval, there were two kinds of dolphin swimming in a huge pod together. Spinner and melon head. There were sooo many of them.

The second dive was so warm, no current… and I forgot about the beautiful wall here. Holy cow, it was gorgeous. We found many nudis and we stayed down a long time. THIS is what I came here for. At the end all of the kids were free diving off the dock.

At lunch, I jumped up after the meal and grabbed a piece of cake. I totally forgot that they serve you lunch dessert. I hadn’t made it to lunch on my arrival day or the first day of diving, so I forgot how it works!

Yesterday Rhome and Max told a story about these awful guests from Bulgaria. So today they started teasing me that I may need to get a “Bulgarian rating”. That my transgressions here at the resort are getting as bad as the Bulgarians. Oh man, I better shape up!

I jumped the house reef today. It was a little slow at first but then it picked up toward the end.

Dinner was another fabulous meal and I was so tired, I just crashed.

Here are the new nudis today:

28. Phyllidiella nigra

29. Doriprismatica balut

30. Nembrotha chamberlaini

31. Glossodoris rufomarginata

32. Phyllidiella pustulosa

33. Dendrodoris carbunculosa

We posted this one to Facebook. I was sure that it was a Paradoris of some kind.

http://seaslugs.free.fr/nudibranche/a_dendrodoris_carbunculosa_juvenile.htm

34. "Taringa" halgerda

35. Phyllodesmium poindimiei

36. Marionia sp. 8.

37. Roboastra gracilis

38. Discodoris boholensis

39. Berthella martensi

40. Sagaminopteron psychedelicum

41. Flabellina flamma

42. Samla riwo

43. Philinopsis gardineri

44. Glossodoris acosti

45. Trapania vitta

46. Sclerodoris tuberculata

47. Dermatobranchus sp. 3

48. Flabellina sp. 3

49. Melibe virdis

50. Flabellina sp. 1

51. Atagema intecta

52. Hexabranchus sanguineus

53. Facelind sp. 5

54. Melibe papillosa

Originally we thought was Melibe pilosa, but Marli Wakeling said " No, wrong locale for that species."

55. Pleurobranchus forskali

56. Pleurobranchus peronii

This one is the juvenile

57. Dolabella auricularia

This is the sea hare with its butt chopped off!

Wednesday, November 29, 2023

Baby, I'm Back

The resort has a new boat, it is very nice and we each have a little cabinet under our seat so now if we want to bring a towel it will stay dry.

This coming year will be the last one for Max and Rhome. She just bought a flat in Paris. So cool. They have tickets to go see many Olympic events in the summer of 2024. Awesome.

I had headaches on the first two dives and skipped lunch to sleep. I took advil, drank a coke and drank water. The third dive of the afternoon felt much better, but I still felt a bit of a headache when I came up. I skipped jumping the house reef so I could get feeling better.

There are two girls here named Lisa. One from Colorado and one from Vancouver. The one from Colorado told me this story about a liveaboard in Palau with a hydraulic lift for their skiff and if someone forgot something, they had to have a rubber chicken. I was very interested and heard her tell the whole story and then I told her that I started that tradition a long time ago. It is so cool that the tradition is still there. Long Live Chicken Stu!!!

Before dinner, one of the guides Timo gave a talk about Coral Reefs. I remember when I used to give talks on the Aggressor Boats. Technology has come a long way since then!

I worked hard on my nudi count and I got 27 for my first day. Not bad. Six were new to me in Alor.

1. Chelidonura varians