Nudi Gal: March 2025

Saturday, March 29, 2025

Ramblin' on from Romblon

We leave tonight on the overnight ferry. We are still going to do two dives this morning.

The weather was cloudy today, but there was a double rainbow on the walk to the boat. Bobby continued to find great slugs on our last dives. I worked harder on my photography and did some snooting. I found out I love the chunk-chunk sound of when I have locked in on a subject and I flip on the diopter. It is pretty satisfying.

We saw the Melibe colemani one last time. I shot it and saw later that it was laying eggs. Whoa. I really should have snooted this guy but I was just so happy to stare at it for a while.

We had lunch and then had some downtime to pack and get ready for dinner. I was able to stay in my room, but Francis and Pirjo had to pack up and get out of their room because someone else was coming. I told them they can hang in my room if they want, but there is a lounge in the office area.

I streamed some comedy and worked on my slugs.

At dinner I had one last coffee ice cream before we headed to the ferry terminal on trikes. The ferry was late in departing and I fell full asleep in the waiting area. Once we got to our first class cabins I was ready for bed. I finished my book instead of working on my slugs.

Last List for Romblon

154 - Chromodoris lochi

I guess this guy was hungry! Its head was buried deep into that sponge.

155 - Polycera sp. 8

156 - Mexichromis pusilla

157 - Phyllidiopsis fissurata

158 - Tenellia sp. 82

159 - Thordisa sp. 17

160 - Thordisa sp.

These last two were right next to each other and SO cryptic, I could barely see them.

Bob Marley Nudi

I slept in until 5am. Whoa! That is the latest I have slept in so far! We had another power outage right at 6am today.

We had two very nice dives in the morning.

On the first dive Bobby said we were going to see the Bob Marley nudibranch. What? We had never heard of that. He meant the Tenellia melanobranchia. So funny!

After the first dive, my computer said the “do not go” sign and a time of 3 hours right next to the mountains. Both were colored yellow. I went to the Altitude on my computer and it said 100 ft. I never set it to that. So I went back down to Sea Level. It didn’t go away immediately but after the second dive it was gone. Weird.

I also pulled out my hidden backup dive computer. Doh. Its battery ran out. I have another battery so I changed it over lunch. It is good to have a second computer just in case the first one fails.

At lunch we had a delicious fish dish and then Pirjo and I got to talking about the Poisson Cru dish in Tahiti. Now I am craving that. Yum!

The afternoon dive was nice and we found lots of interesting slugs. I tried to take another snoot shot with my left strobe. So awkward. I feel like I should only snoot when conditions are PERFECT.

The night dive brought lots of treats and I even tried to snoot again on a Goniobranchus fidelis. I’m not sure my results were great, but they were interesting. We also saw a mutant nudi!

Nudi Queue

140 - Phyllodesmium macphersonae

141 - Kabeiro sp. 1

142 - Sakuraeolis marhe

143 - Trapania sp.

144 - Phyllodesmium briareum

145 - Tenellia sp. 71

146 - Goniobranchus coi

147 - Aglaja fulvipunctata

148 - Hypselodoris reidi

149 - Favorinus mirabilis

150 - Favorinus sp. 2

151 - Sagaminopteron psychedelicum

152 - Trapania gibbera

153 - Stiliger sp.

Thursday, March 27, 2025

Blackwater - 3P Style

OMG. At four am, this pack of dogs was barking loudly outside my window. How can the neighborhood stand this? The noise is so terrible.

I finished my nudis in time for breakfast. I am super excited to dive today, tomorrow and part of Sunday… and then the trip will already be half over. How can that be?

During the second dive, Pirjo told me she wasn’t getting any strobe and I thought about the flash button and hers was in the off position. We were able to turn it on and it works. So I troubleshooted her problem underwater.

Then I went into High Resolution Mode and had a disk write failure… and I couldn’t figure out how to get out of it. I just felt sorry for myself for a bit, then hovered while I scrolled through all the settings and found it and turned it off. I have no idea how it got triggered to be turned on.

Bobby was shocked as we came back to the resort when he told me that I should be ready for the Blackwater by 6:30pm. I was like and for the afternoon? He said that there is no afternoon dive because of Blackwater. What!??! Nobody told me that.

After a bit of clarification, it was just that Bobby cannot do an afternoon dive, so they put me on another boat with two Americans, Laura and Alan. Both are from California. It was on the house reef and I got to practice some more and got some good shots but at some point, this dive guide put me on a slug right on top of Alan. I got mad underwater. Ugh. There is a WHOLE ocean. Why do they have to set up subjects right ON TOP of another diver?

I reconfigured my camera for Blackwater and took a little nap.

Blackwater was good, but not as lifechanging as the times I did it in West Palm Beach in 2020. I barely got any shots to fire at all. The highlight of this dive was a huge shrimp living in a six fool pyrosome.

This is not the six foot one, but a smaller version.

Here are the slugs for today:

124 - Mexichromis trilineata

125 - Hypselodoris roo (I thought Hypselodoris infucata, but Vie corrected me)

126 - Dendrodoris arborescens

127 - Hoploplana sp.

This one is causing quite a stir on Facebook whether or not it is a flatworm or nudi.

Marli Wakeling said https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/252060947 Hoploplana sp. from Romblon.

128 - Sacoproteus smaragdinus (originally I thought Caulerpa mimic "Stiliger" smaragdinus but Vie corrected me)

129 - Costasiella kuroshimae

130 - Gymnodoris sp. 29

131 - Kaloplocamus sp.

132 - Goniobranchus rufomaculatus

133 - Miamira sinuata

134 - Siphopteron sp. 4

Strobes were not firing due to the High Resolution Mode Disk Error.

135 - Jorunna ramicola

Strobes were not firing due to the High Resolution Mode Disk Error.

136 - Tenellia puti (originally I thought Tenellia sp. 15, but Vie corrected me)

Strobes were not firing due to the High Resolution Mode Disk Error.

137 - Cyerce nigra (sub-adult) - (Originally I thiguht Cyerce cf. nigra, but Vie corrected me)

138 - Phyllidia elegans

139 - Halgerda batangas

Wednesday, March 26, 2025

Pump It Up

I slept pretty well last night and got my slugs done in plenty of time. I also didn’t have any unidentified ones to post to Facebook.

This morning’s dives are totally the reason I come to Romblon. We barely went anywhere and just took photos of the most amazing slugs and critters.

I tried a new focus technique by using the back button. I am still trying it but the good news is that however I have it set right now will let me focus with the back button and the regular half press. That’s good.

I also asked Pirjo what she was taking a picture of because she couldn’t find it. I assumed she could hit the play button on the bottom right of the camera, but I FORGOT that she looks at everything thru the viewfinder so that technique doesn’t work.

At lunch we took a picture with Vie. Here is our Rock Star!

I shared my blog with him and he helped make a bunch of corrections. He is really good at keeping up with the name changes.

I am going to do Blackwater tomorrow night here at Romblon. Woot! I messaged Mike to get the default settings.

For the afternoon, we are going to do two dives on the same trip. We pushed back departure time to 3:30pm. The night dive will be more of a dusk dive but that is ok. We brought some snacks to eat on the surface interval.

I forgot to pump the vacuum in my housing today. Crap. At least I noticed it right away and was able to run back upstairs and do it. Thank God. A flood would be disasterous. I feel like I need a sign: PUMP!!!

Tonight the dessert for dinner was ice cream, so we got coffee ice cream again. Yum!

Nudi Count:

103 - Tenellia sibogae