Nudi Gal: Hidden Easter Bunnies

I didn’t sleep more than a couple of hours. I got up and showered and drank water and coffee before we donated all of our Holiday Inn Express baked goods to the hotel and rolled our bags over to the ticket office and then to the boat. It was still the dead of night… like 3am. When we got all of our bags up the stairs we found that all of the open air bunk beds were already inhabited by Filippinos. What time had they boarded?

We found a stool at the coffee bar and I bought all of us a coffee while we waited for departure. They left just a little before 4am and we got the Romblon just before 5am. We couldn’t keep the porters away, so we had to pay them for their assistance and we were then off on two trikes and there was really nowhere for Francis to sit… so he sat straddling the motorcycle behind the driver!

It was still dark when we arrived, but I was full of energy and started unpacking my things. I even got my underwater camera ready. By the time 7am and breakfast rolled around, I was feeling pretty good. I was going to do the morning dives!

I made the first dive. I was the only one on the boat. It was fabulous and my new and new-to-me gear worked well. I took lots of pictures of interesting slugs, cowries and crabs. Then at the end of the dive I felt sick. Nauseous, headache… oh man, and probably just tired. It was almost the end of the dive anyway but I signaled I was going to go up.

At my request, they took me back instead of doing the second dive.

I drank water, ate a banana and took a nap.

The afternoon dive was at 3pm and the Pellets came too. It was a really fabulous dive where Bobby continued to find great stuff. I started feeling more relaxed but realized I had already been chewing through my new regulator mouthpiece. I am glad I brought my old molded mouthpiece, but I am not 100% sure it is the same fit. I need to check in case I have to switch it.

We also did the night dive on the house reef. I used my new hood which I really like. I am glad I did because we got attacked by bloodworms.

Afterward we had dinner and one of the items was “Ladyfingers”. I forgot that is what they call okra. There was a big table of divers from Thailand who brought their own snack foods and were have a great time together.

Me? I just needed to crawl into bed. I barely downloaded my pictures before I nodded off.

Here are the slugs for the day:

1 - Thecacera picta

2 - Melibe digita

3 - Hypselodoris whitei

4 - Chromodoris willani

5 - Sagaminopteron nigropunctatum

6 - Jorunna sp. 8

7 - Phestilla minor

Originally I thought Baeolidia variabilis. Posted to Nudibase - Marli Wakeling said: No. I believe it is Phestilla minor. https://en.seaslug.world/species/phestilla_minor/4197, but it could be undescribed.

8 - Goniobranchus geometricus

9 - Unknown (tiny lavender sparkly juvenile Hypeselodoris of some kind).

Posted to Nudibase - Marli Wakeling said:

Either juvenile Hypselodoris krakatoa or Hypselodoris cerisae. Impossible to know at this size.

10 - Melibe engeli

11 - Melibe colemani

12 - Chromodoris annae

13 - Phyllidiella pustulosa

14 - Trapania palmula

15 - Chromodoris strigata

16 - Trapania miltabranchia

17 - Cyerce sp.

From Kati: This is just called Cyerce sp. Vie is a nudibranch scientist. He is here with the Thai group. He said it might also be a Mourgona sp.

18 - Phyllodesmium crypticum

19 - Chelidonura varians

20 - Doriprismatica balut

21 - Phyllidia picta

When I looked really closely at the photo, I found these little parasites that looked like bunny ears. I wonder what these are... Pirjo thinks that they are eggs of the parasite. Interesting.