Nudi Gal: Wet in Wetar

Saturday, October 17, 2026

Wet in Wetar

Last night, the plan for today was written on the whiteboard:

We are diving air on this trip as the boat does not have Nitrox. Therefore, our bottom time will not be as lenient as if we were on Nitrox.

There is a possibility we could do three dives today, but the plan is to only do two.

I woke up around 2am and decided to finish putting my camera together. It was too much to finish it last night.

I am trying out my new checklist for getting the camera ready. I never want to jump in again without my battery changed!

Early in the morning I went to set up my dive gear.

I have new fins and booties. The booties are really buoyant so I brought my ankle weights. I think I am going to need them for a little while.

On the first dive, I found several species of nudis. The coral was so healthy. We also came across a whitefin shark and a big octopus.

I put some water in my floats since that is what I was doing with my blackwater… but then I realized that my diopter was making the setup heavier. I don’t need to put any water in my floats when I have my diopter on. In fact, the rig is a bit too heavy.

At the end of the dive, Mariasol found a nautilus shell on the surface and brought it onto the liveaboard. So cool and VERY lucky.

I am on boat two, but they went up when I still had a ton of bottom time, so I was invited to stick around with the third boat so I could get a longer dive in. Yay!

I feel like my strobes are not lighting up the subject very well. I need to keep tweaking. Maybe I am also now used to the power of the Atom strobes so I feel like these MiniFlash2s aren’t so great.

In the afternoon, a huge pod of spinner dolphins came alongside the boat and did some major tricks for us. Jumping and Splashing. It was really fun!

... more to come...

Nudi Species

1 - Phyllidiella sp.