Nudi Gal: April 2025

Thursday, April 3, 2025

Godfather of Blackwater

Wow, I am 2/3 of the way through my trip. I feel dialed in and ready to up my game. I even threw on my nudi hood:

And so did Pirjo:

We had really good discussion this morning and one of my slugs, Limenandra sp. A is new!

Terry mentioned that Adler and Hancock the Godfathers of slugging from the 1800s. It would be fun to read up about them.

Two dives at Bethlehem were amazing. We were finding so many slugs that we were rock swapping and I had a few queued up for me to shoot. Yes, this is how it should be!!! I was even singing on the boat in between dives. At the end of the second dive, I found a little doll with a scuba mask on. So cute. I added it to my collection.

I had a crazy idea on the second dive that we should have trading cards for all the sluggers. It could have their diving picture and then:

Name:

Nickname:

Hometown:

Birth Decade:

Favorite Nudibranch:

Last Camera Flooded:

I chatted with Mike Miller over lunch. He was certified in 1977 and was slugging by 1980. Somewhere he has a picture of all the sluggers he hung around. He said half of them had mental problems, and the other half were gay. Ha! They sound like a blast!

Then he told a story about how he and Terry were diving in Northern Mindinao, Philippines in the early 90s. They were setting to shoot mandarinfish and a Miamira alleni crawled out. This is a crazy looking slug and was the first known sighting. They collected it and Terry described it.

Gladys is here and diving today. She brought me some dried mangos at lunch. They are like spaghetti strips instead of the normal “chips”. Yum!

Terry gave a lecture at 2pm about biodiversity here in the Coral Triangle. He often referred to VIP which stands for the Verde Island Passage.

He also talked about Clay Carlson who named the Sagaminopteron psychedelicum. He was an expert on Guam nudibranchs.

When referring to multiple species, we should say “spp.” I need to add this to the little document I’m putting together.

Jim taught me a good way to keep up on the scientific papers changing the names of the nudis. I should subscribe via Google Scholar to scientific papers about Heterobranchs which will include Nudibranchs and other slugs. Also, I can ask for any scientific papers relating to Terry Gosliner.

Then papers can cost money, so instead I should try using Sci-Hub which gives free access.

We did the afternoon dive on the House Reef, which was OK, then I did a Blackwater dive with Mike and Georgina. It was cool to see how the “Godfather of Blackwater” does it. I tried so hard to get anything in focus, but I feel like I failed miserably. Mike recommends using my 30 mm lens instead… which I think is weird because everything I’ve heard is that 60mm is best for Blackwater. But Mike says that is for DSLR, and because I have a 4:3 camera, I should change to 30mm. Well, I guess I can try that if I do another Blackwater Dive… but I am really bummed that my new camera (once again) cannot seem to handle Blackwater. I was assured that it could. Darn it.

My dream is to see the pelagic nudibranch, Phylliroe bucephalum, on a Blackwater Dive and photograph it.

I only had a banana before I went in, so I asked the kitchen for a peanut butter sandwich after. Then I didn’t get to bed until really late.

Slugging along:

93 - Ceratosoma sp. 1

A Ceratosoma without the Brazilian Butt Lift.

94 - Trapania vitta

95 - Coryphellina delicata

96 - Goniodoridella savignyi

97 - Glossodoris rufomarginata

98 - Verconia alboannulata

99 - Phyllidiella granulata

100 - Caloria sp. 1

101 - Phyllidia polkadotsa

102 - Aegires villosus

103 - Moridilla brockii

104 - Aegires sp. 6

105 - Goniobranchus hintuanensis

Wednesday, April 2, 2025

Full Swing

I am working hard to stay on top of my blog and nudis, but I am falling behind. This always happens in the beginning of a new count.

I need to confirm my white balance setting with Mike.

Tonight we go blackwater diving.

Here is a little bit of flair I have on my photo station nudi related:

I put a couple slugs in to discuss this morning. One was a creamy Gymnodoris I could not find… but then after a discussion with Terry, we figured out it was a Polycera sp. 3. So weird that they look so similar.

I learned something new about the naming methodology. Any sp. with a Number is tying to NSSI2. Any sp. with a Letter is newly identified since the book was published

I also learned that there are Light Organs on Placomorphus… when turn the lights out, there is phosphoresces in it that still glows. I had no idea! David Mullins turned me on to this..

https://nudibranchdomain.org/illumination-enlightenment-bioluminescence-in-nudibranchs/

The Moridilla brockii are only from India now. When finding it here, we should call it Moridilla cf. brockii for now.

Lik lik means small in Papua New Guinea. That’s how the Okenia lik lik got its name. But now that name has changed to Naisdoris vitiligata. Not as fun.

I just learned that there is one banana slug where they eat each others penises after mating. What!?!?!? This is also the mascot for University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC).

iNaturalist is another resource to review. Kati posts all of her stuff there.

https://www.inaturalist.org/

Terry refers to the Dirty Dorids often as they can be tough to tell apart.

Yesterday was a count of 159 for the group on Day 2. We are getting better.

I mentioned to Dave that I am trying to compile all the stories of Nudis and the culture surrounding it. He stated that I should talk to Mike Miller, our oldest participant as he has a ton of great stories.

The morning dives were Kirby (my favorite) and Bethlehem (Pirjo’s favorite). Yay!

At Bethlehem I found a child’s bunny stuffed animal in the rubble and when I flipped it over I found the most gorgeous Phyllodesmium poindemei. I feel like there is a bunny theme running through this trip.

Blackwater got bumped another night… so I’ll be doing two afternoon dives today.

In the afternoon, Mike edited one of my Photos. He over edited it in my opinion so I asked him to revert back to the pre-AI version. He called me a tough customer but Terry AGREED with me and even high fived me.

I am running out of storage in the cloud for my Lightroom, so I need to upgrade. Mike recommends an ALL IN ONE PACKAGE… and to not get Adobe Apps, get Lightroom LRC. I may consider Photoshop, but all the edits Mike was doing were in Lightroom, not Photoshop.

https://www.adobe.com/ph_en/products/photoshop-lightroom-classic/lightroom-cc-vs-lightroom-classic.html

Arthur’s Wall and Arthur’s Rock is the official name of the Crystal Blue House Reef Dive Site. I never knew!!! I guess it is named after the guy who lived next door and passed away.

Doh. I found out later from Glenn, my dive guide that they are in fact different. I’ll give Mike some crap about this.

On the afternoon dive, we had quite a lot of current, so Mario was pretty worried about us. I certainly knew that there was current, but I felt fine aobut it. Francis had a zoom call so he was planning on skipping the fourth dive but Pirjo and Mario also skipped so it was just me and Glen on the night dive. Woot! We found so much great stuff. And there was no current.

More specimens have been collected and they are sitting on the dive deck in some ocean water. It is so interesting to see them in a Tupperware and realize just how small they really are.

After dinner I helped Mike identify his unknown nudis. It was fun to see his outstanding shots and help to put a name to them.

Here is his Facebook post:

Numerous Nudis

74 - Cabangus regius

75 - Chromodoris dianae

76 - Micromelo undatus

77 - Pteraeolidia semperi

78 - Favorinus mirabilis

79 - Thorunna halourga

80 - Phyllidiopsis fissurata

81 - Phyllodesmium poindimiei

82 - Phyllidiopsis pipeki

83 - Hypselodoris iba

84 - Tenellia sp. 48

85 - Phyllidiopsis krempfi

86 - Noumaella sp. 3

87 - Phyllodesmium briareum

88 - Elysia marginata

89 - Eubranchus mandapamensis

90 - Cratena sp. 2

91 - Jorunna rubescens

92 - Limenandra sp. A

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