Slug Stats

I am mostly packed and sitting at the dining room table drinking coffee one last time.  I feel very good about the trip.  I have a broken strobe to deal with but I was able to avoid this awful virus that made its way though the resort.  I only skipped one dive… which I SHOULD have gone on… they saw some good things on the house reef in the rain.

Here are the stats for this trip:

222 Unique Species of Nudibranchs.  That is down from 233 in 2023, but it beat all other years.  

Disclaimer: I went fast and made some mistakes.  I know at least two are probably cowries, not nudis.  I also looked at the nudis in a slide show and I feel like many of them seemed to be repeats... with just a different name.  I’ll review and adjust.

I believe over 40 of these are the first time I am seeing them in Alor.  

I will circle back with how many species are new to me on this trip.  I know that Bornella Anguilla and Kaloplocamus acutus and Goniobranchus sp. 15.

I did 76 Dives bringing me to a lifetime total of 2537.  I did 146 dives this year (not including any volunteer dives at Shedd).  That’s four more than last year.

Until next time!

Two Two Two

So today is the last day of diving.  It really has been a great trip and I still don’t have Alor out of my system, so I am glad to be coming back next year, just a week earlier.  Nikko assured me he will be here.  Hooray!

Here is fun topside shot of Pirjo, Nikko and me:

We had two nice last mucky dives and even found a few new ones.

Of course, as soon as we got back it started raining so our gear will not dry.  Oof.

It rained all afternoon.  It seemed to take me longer to pack things up than usual.

I dressed up a little for dinner, but they don’t really have a big goodbye night since groups come and go every day.  We just happen to be the last set of guests before the season here ends.  The staff has their big holiday party tomorrow.  Then they are off for three months.

Pirjo arranged a special cake with Alex to celebrate my birthday and 10 years of us diving together.  So sweet!  And the cake was so delicious.  Alex baked it herself, which is no small feat here in Alor!

I also got to chat a bit with Max and Lauren, the resort owners, over the phone.  They were so darling and glad to hear we had a great time.

Final Frontier

219 - Verconia sp. 5

220 - Elysia pusilla

221 - Goniobranchus hintuanensis

222 - Unknown

Stats will be coming in tomorrow's post, but I landed at 222.

All Righta Aurita

I woke up a couple times in the night because my fan kept going off.  I guess there was a power cut or two overnight.

Alex and Uri found a scorpion in their room last night.  I didn’t even know they had them here.  Yikes.  But the locals talk about being bit by a scorpion as if it were a bee.

On the ride back to the resort, we ran into a pod of melon head whales which are a type of dolphin.  And there was another pod of regular dolphins next to them.  We just sat and watched for a while.

On the night dive at Matap, we found THE BIGGEST Gymnodoris aurita.  It seriously was the size of a guinea pig.  I took a picture and thought, how could I improve it.  I could not think of any way to do so.  It was awesome.  I handed it off to Pirjo and swam along.  Then I thought, this was so special I needed to go back and just look at it for a while over Pirjo’s shoulder.  Then I saw that there was a second species of Gymnodoris, really small.  Then I saw that they were getting close together and I thought that the big one was going to eat the little one.  I swear I saw it going into the mouth, but then we saw it reappear later.  Wow!  What an encounter.

At dinner I gave Mona the Chicken Stu I had packed in case of unruly divers.  We didn’t need it, so I told her she could use it for next season.  I also chatted with Alex and Uri again.  They shared a story about a guest who was a pilot and would not allow anyone in his room the whole time he was here… except one day when he wanted the sheets changed.  He had a dozen stuffed animals lined up perfectly on his bed.  WTF?  Who travels with stuffed animals?  And they said he was in his late 40s/early 50s.  

Sluggercalifragilisticexpialidocious

217 - Moridilla brockii

218 - Gymnodoris aurita

After escaping being eaten.  I mean look how much bigger the G. aurita is!!!

Ring in the Blue Year

Well, only three more days of diving.  I was thinking last night after the night dive that part of the magic of coming here is diving with Nikko.  He is the best chill guide who finds and shows me what I’m looking for.  And I always know where he is.  

The nudi list is slow but I broke my goal of 200, so I am happy with my results.  Anything over that is gravy.

Next to the toasters, I noticed a long wooden thing in the basket.  It was the length of a cane but had a curve to it.  Almost a scoop.  I couldn’t figure out what it was.  I asked Uri about it at breakfast.  He told a story about guy from World Bank staying here and he messaged ahead to ensure that the resort had a shoehorn.  I guess he was a really big guy and needed one.  Nobody wears shoes here. So they definitely don’t have one.  Uri had to get the local guys to carve this one for him.  He said he is taking it with him as a momento.  

The muck dives were warm with no current.  We found quite a bit.

At the end of the first dive, Nikko found a blue ring octopus!  He said that it is his first of the season.

One of the other boats found a blue whale and its calf during their surface interval.  The guest with the drone sent it up and captured some stunning video.

On my afternoon dive, I took a picture of the lobster living under mooring #2.  I was quite taken by the colors on him:

I also found this crazy looking stonefish:

Slug Mugs

209 - Tenellia sp. 80

210 - Thorunna sp. 2

211 - Dermatobranchus tuberculatus

212 - Diniatys dubius

213 - Phyllidia coelestis

214 - Dermatobranchus sp. 8

215 - Phyllidia picta

216 - Aldysia sp.

<coming soon from Pirjo... I saw it from afar but couldn't circle back in time to get it>

Bender

There is a big gecko that hangs out near the coffee station.  I am going to name him Grindz.

Nikko has a day off today.  I am lost without him.  Hengky is our guide.

The first dive of the morning was cold and the strongest current yet.  Dave put his pointer stick down in order to hold on to something and it bent.  I think I took five photos.  We surfaced at 45 minutes.

The second dive was Matap where it was warm and there was no current.  I made Hengky dive it like Nikko does so we could crawl up the mountain.  We found a transparent juvenile fish.  Maybe a rhinopia?

At dinner I brought the little “Drinking Buddies” markers and let each of the ladies pick one to keep.  Everyone got a kick out of it.

On the evening dive Hengky found a Phyllodesmium macphersonae!  Three of them, although I only saw two.  They are super tough to get a photo of because they blend right into the substrate.  I also worked on “Shawn the Sheep”:

Chugging along

206 - Phyllidiopsis annae

207 - Roboastra gracilis

208 - Phyllodesmium macphersonae

So Cold

I slept in until almost 4am.  I worked on the nudis and I am now at 198.  I just need to find one more to meet my goal.  I have five more days to get 35 more and I could beat the 2023 record.

I learned that Mona can do a perfect imitation of a gecko.  It is quite impressive.

This morning’s first two dives were SO COLD.  76 degrees.  We went in search of mola molas after in the rain and I just closed my eyes and dreamed of a hot shower.  We didn’t find any mola mola, so I got my wish.

Check out these two Hypselodoris tryoni slime trailing:

There are two slugs on the same rock every afternoon on the house reef.  I am going to start calling them Cliff and Norm… from Cheers.

On the night dive, Pirjo and I took pictures of a Crocodile Snake Eel and several fish nearby kept bumping into us.  And one of them "played dead" and seemed to be paralyzed.  Not even a minute later, it woke up and swam about its business.  

I started watching Season 2 of the Ted Danson series Man on the Inside.  I am also pushing forward with The Big Year book.

Instead of a sorbet dessert at dinner I opted for a ginger tea.  I cannot shake this very cold feeling.

I had to charge my dive computer overnight again.  This is a long trip!

Slime Trail

199 - Phyllidiopsis pipeki

For some reason a little Doriprismatica balut was crawling on it.

200 - Phyllidiella sp.

Rhinophores are just slightly different than the previous Phyllidiella sp.

201 - Ceratosoma trilobatum

202 - Flabellina lotos

203 - Phyllodesmium crypticum

204 - Dermatobranchus sp. 16

205 -Goniobranchus fabulus

Cacophony of Coughs

Everyone is coughing today.  It is like a cacophony of coughs.  So far, I’m still untouched.  Knock wood.  Maybe it is because I got the flu shot in October.

Pirjo sat on the boat this morning because her ears won't clear.  I am so sad for her.  She kept good spirits and even did a Go Pro video as we came up from the dive.

On the first dive I found something weird and interesting I thought was a nudi but it turns out is a limpet: Scutus sinensis.  

We also found boxer crabs.  The last one was dancing, swaying its pom poms from side to side.

On the second dive I went to go snoot a frogfish and everything get set up ok but then the strobe wasn’t firing.  Ugh.  Then after we got back to the resort, I tried again and it seemed to work fine.  WTF?

We also found this colony of brown teddy bear looking nudis. Vie Panyarachun thinks they are possibly a Hallaxa.

I finished my series “The Big C” on Netflix with Laura Linney.  I liked it.  She wanted her last words to be “Lucky Me”.  I like it.

At the end of the night dive I snooted several things.  It was so tough.  I was able to get everything set up, but then I just handed it up that way to the boat guys.  I did not disassemble it.

Mona and I started talking about Snooting like a Lady at dinner… and one of the guests confirmed what was in my head… that “Dude looks like a Lady” by Aerosmith is the theme song for this.  “Snoot it like a Lady”

Mona also told a story about how she got stung by a man o’ war in the Maldives.  How awful.  But of course I asked if she saw the Glaucus atlanticus in there.

Slug Line

193 - Chelidonura hirundinina

194 - Philinopsis pilsbryi

195 - Phyllodesmium pecten

196 - Phyllodesmium longicirrum

It took a long time to find one this year!

197 - Hallaxa sp.  

Here is just one of the many clusters (parties) of these teddy bear nudis:

198 - Nembrotha lineolata