Nudi Gal: Plethora

Darn, the kettle in my room is not working this morning. But I took it to the office, and they said they would replace it for me.

I wore my favorite nudi dress from RedBubble.com.

At breakfast, Anouk recommended a cool Japanese based website called Sea Slug World that gives great information about nudis. I am going to start referring to it.

https://en.seaslug.world/

Pirjo worked hard last night on the list for our boat and in the morning I added my few more. We got it to Jim 5 minutes before the deadline.

Each morning, Terry looks at photos we shot the day before and helps us to figure out the IDs. We often debate each other trying to get to the right answer. When he reaches a conclusion, he hits the gavel:

And today he was presented with some Thecacera sp. 8 (Pikachu) slippers.

I showed my Trapania darvelli at the morning session. Mike gave me a little advice… I need to up my shutter speed 1/200.

Also, I have not been using my diffusers on the strobe. In fact I left them at home. I should think about bringing/using the diffusers next trip

I need to download Jim’s most recent book from frogfish thumb drive as well as the scientific papers from Terry.

The blackwater dive was delayed to tomorrow night. I am good with that.

Drumroll please, the slug count overall for the group was74 total. That is pretty low… but we only had two dives yesterday vs. four usually on the first day.

Our first dive was at New Beth. It was pretty good, but still was not the original Bethleham. Afterward, I was hovering near the surface and some sticky black oil got in the braid in my hair. Ew… then it got all over my neck. So disgusting. I would rather not have to wear a hood all the time, but it may come to that.

I felt pretty cool on the second dive and found good stuff on my own.

After the second dive, I washed my braid and my neck and the oil came out pretty easily.

I ate lunch with Mario and shared with him that I used to work on Liveaboards. He is interested in working in the industry. Here we are in our matching dive flags.

I half listened to Mike’s photo editing/processing session in the afternoon.

He went through some Photoshop tricks. I should consider the Topaz AI Package (including Sharpening Tool) looks insane. I was pretty impressed by a Nembrotha example he showed. It is a different app all together… choose "Edit In Topaz" and then launches the Topaz App.

I got distracted in the photo room and I FORGOT to put my cap back on. So scary! My housing even went in the rinse tank. Luckily nobody hit the red button and the vacuum seal stayed in tact. I noticed that it was missing only once it got loaded on to the boat. Gah! But at least I noticed before we left. So I ran back to get it… dried it off and put it on. The light was still green. Somebody is looking out for me. I pledge to NEVER do that again. Whoa.

I ate dinner with Mike and told him my tale. He said that he’s had many divers who lost their cap and have taken their camera/housing diving anyway. He also said they flood it every time. So I’m lucky.

He also said that I should go back to my old strobes for blackwater… these are not meant for blackwater. Ugh. I didn’t bring them but at least I still have them at home and they are still working. He is doing a Blackwater week in Cozumel in August. Hmmm…

Slug Count

47 - Odontoglaja guamensis