The internet is so slow this morning. Starlink is usually pretty good in the morning when I am the only one up. Oh well.
I caught a post from Nat Geo about Nudis this morning: Warning—looking at nudibranchs may cause excessive awe
There has been some concern that our flight from Alor to Kupang has been/will be canceled. Whatever. I am not worrying about it but others are.
At first breakfast this morning, we ran out of peanut butter. Put enough Americans on a dive boat and that is bound to happen. Maybe I should pack some next trip.
This morning we dove a little alcove where Larry Smith coined the term critter diving. I was shown some mushroom coral pipefish. I took a quick look but then moved on. I have nudis to find.I stayed down so long I came up with a different group and I noticed on the safety stop that the screws in my tray were coming loose. I had the crew help me tighten them back down with an allen wrench.
Nudi Count
After the dive I actually had hot water and some pressure in my shower. Hallelujah. Yesterday I had to sit in the show naked, wet and a head full of shampoo waiting for some water pressure to come back so I could rinse it out. I know, high class problems.
Then we had second breakfast. This was just chicken soup and hard boiled eggs, but also sliced fruit. Every time I hear about second breakfast, I think of my Grandpa who was a farmer, got up early and always had second breakfast.
I noticed that on iNaturalist, I get great response from the Nudi experts, but when I post a flatworm for ID, I get zero response. Where are those experts?
On the second dive, we went to another area Graham thought was hot the last time he dove it a dozen years ago. But now, there is a jetty there. We dove the jetty and it was INCREDIBLE!!! There were critters and nudis everywhere. I came up from the dive singing... "My kind of dive, the jetty is" to the tune of "My kind of town, Chicago is".
Graham made a very special itinerary for us finding the lushest, coraly-est places to dive. But the one I got most excited about was a mucky ugly concrete and rebar trash filled jetty called Pelabuhan Eray. Go figure.
We love it so much we dove it again.
At the end of the dives, this little children were waving and watching us. Like we were aliens. I waved and yelled “I love you” like we do in Alor. But they didn’t know how to say that so I just gave them the little heart sign with my hands and they did it back.
I even found an Ornate Ghost Pipefish with eggs! I put it through ChatGPT but I don't think it did the best job.
The Original:
Chat GPT:
Dinner was amazing. They did surf and turf on the BBQ. The meat is venison - a local deer found in Alor.
Nudi Count
No comments:
Post a Comment