The nudi so nice they named it twice

I’m seeing this little curly que thing show up in some of my photos.  I wonder if it is a little piece of lint in my lens.

Today’s first dive at Babylon was so fabulous.  It was beautiful, there was absolutely no current and I just felt good in the water.  I hit that neutral buoyancy.  It was just Cheryl, me and Nikko our dive guide diving today.  Nikko found the smallest little Sagiminopteron psychedelicum.  I was impressed.  

The second dive was at Red Sand Beach where bubbles came up through the red sand and it was really fishy.

No headaches this morning.  Hooray!

I laid down for a bit after lunch and then jumped in with Nikko at 2:30 for a house reef dive.  He is a great spotter and has this great light that strobes when he finds something.  He also grunts a lot under water.  Not because he found something or wants to get my attention… he just grunts.  

In between dives I started reading Laurie Notaro’s new book.  I was laughing out loud, crying.  That girl is funny.

Right before the night dive, someone came to the dive site and gave Nikki his phone.  I asked if that was his family… and yes, that was his little girl.  She waved at us from shore.  So cute!

The night dive at Barry's was insane!  That's where we saw the nudi so nice they named it twice.

At dinner, my shiny new flip flops were waiting for me.  They are pretty ugly but they smell great and they fit!

The slug list was pretty good today:

38 - Phyllidiella nigra

Two mating

39 - Sagiminopteron psychedelicum

I was so impressed that Nikko found this one.

40 - Phyllidiopsis sphingis

41 - Flabellina sp. 3

Look closely, there is a parasite on it.

42 - Thuridilla albopustulosa

43 - Ardeadoris angustolutea

Crawling through this coral tunnel.  I sat and watched it for a while.  So pretty.

44 - Goniobranchus fidelis

There was a second one back there.

45 - Chelidonura varians 

I never noticed that they have blue polka dots on their tail.   

Look at the "fur" on their mouth.

46 - Goniobranchus geminus  

We found this under a leather coral.  It was huge and flapping and soooo beautiful.

47 - Thecacera sp. 8

aka: The Pikachu

48 - Favorinus sp. 1

49 - Petalifera ramosa 

Its eyespots are just staring me down.

50 - Melibe engeli

Translucent almost invisible nudi.

51 - Pleurobranchus weberi

52 - Umbraculum umbraculum

Ladies and gentlemen, the slug so nice they named it twice...  It looks like there is a pile of poop on top of it.  And honestly, I didn't know it actually had rhinophore.  This is the first time I have EVER seen it.  

53 - Favorinus mirabilis

54 - Atagema intecta

55 - Tenellia sp. 15

56 - Mexichromis multituberculata

57 - Dendrodoris denisoni

In my head I was thinking that this was a BEAUTIFUL new nudi I have never seen before and then I realized... Doh!  That is the one I am actually cross stitching right now.  OMG.  

58 - Sclerodoris tuberculata

59 - Sclerodoris apiculata

Flop to Flip

I got up around 3am and walked over to the source of coffee.  It is so weird here, you walk through the jungle and it sounds like footsteps everywhere.  It isn’t anything but it really sounds like it.  Crazy.

Somewhere in the 3am hour, the singing from the Mosque starts.  Speaking of Mosques, our third dive yesterday was called “Mucky Mosque”.

My ears feel great this morning.  I am so glad they are not giving me problems.

The local girls who work at the resort watched me braid my hair this morning.  Then suddenly they all had braids in too!  They are fast learners.

A huge tree fell down.  Right between Cheryl and my cabanas.  Whoa.  Also, while I was checking that out I found a huge pile of poop right off my porch.  Yuck.  I wonder what that was.  It was pretty big too!

At breakfast and lunch we had quite a bit of conversation about cross stitching.  It turns out Judy loves to do it and brought quite a bunch with her on this trip to work on.  I showed everyone how I turn my photos into patterns and then stitch them.

I broke down and drank a Sprite.  I was just so sick of water and I wasn’t really feeling the Pink Lemonade.  Meh.  It wasn’t really worth it.

The afternoon dive had virtually no visibility, but we found great stuff!

I jumped into the house reef for a half an hour by myself.  It is beautiful down there.  I found a huge Gymnodoris aurata.  Woot!  It was hiding in the soft coral but I caught a glimpse of its red color!  Later I showed a picture to Reilly and he called it a "Strawberry Nudi".  I explained to him that these nudis are cannibals and will eat other nudibranchs.  They are beasts!

I torqued my inner right knee a little.  I honestly think it happened because of walking around in uneven flip flops.  

I asked Max if my flip flops could go to the hospital.  He said he had super glue, but it is not really like shoe goo… so we opted for just getting new ones.  The girls are going shopping tomorrow so they said they would buy me a new $7 pair and put it on my bill.  #indostyle.

And so Cheryl and I had a funeral for my old ones and threw them away.  Oh well.

At dinner Romy also showed up in braids.  She calls them "plaits".  I guess the girls did her hair too.  We talked all about Ted Lasso with Judy, Romy and Max.  We are going to try to stream it to the TV at some point.

Here are the Nudis for today:

29 - Nembrotha chamberlaini

30 - Elysia pusilla

Hengky found me this itty bitty tiny green nudi.  I really didn't think he had spotted anything... but after looking like three times I finally saw it!

31 - Nembrotha sp. 2

32 - Dermatobranchus albus

33 - Phyllidia ocellata

34 - Goniobranchus reticulatus

35 - Chelidonura amoena

36 - Miamira sinuata

Look at the schnoz on this thing!!!

37 - Gymnodoris aurita

Nudis Galore

And today we dive.

Around 3:30am, I wandered over to the central lounge and set about finding a way to turn on the lights and make coffee… since I was the first one up. 

I reviewed the Nudibranchs from the last time I was here.  I found 160 of them.  I will have my work cut out for me.  Even though I am staying like twice as long, I won’t have Graham spotting them for me.

This guy named Chris who works at one of the local pearl farms came diving with us.  He and Max went off to take pictures.  I got my own guide named Kinnear and Reilly went with Cheryl.  Judy overslept and did not dive today.

I got a terrible headache during my second dive.  I think I had my mask on too tight.  The weather was kinda rainy on the way back.

Lunch was good. HUGE prawns and the sweet eggplant/aubergine.  So good.

On the third dive, I went with my 7mm wetsuit.  It was so hard to get on.  I did OK in it for most of the dive but at the end it was hard to stay down.  After I got out of the water, I had another headache and just felt gross.  So I opted for not doing a house reef dive.  It was just too much.

Dinner was again fabulous, but a circada decided to fly into my head during the meal.  It freaked me out a little.  It hit hard!

After dinner I noticed that the “Nudibranchs” part of rubber sole on my flip flop fell off.  There goes another pair.  But it’s about time.  These were special flip flops that when I walked on the beach I left behind the words "More" and then "Nudibranchs".  I loved them, but they didn't leave the imprint as often as I thought they would.  I will wear them the rest of this trip, and then they are not coming home with me.  By the way, the humor is not lost on me that now they just say “More”.

I accidentally brought the older version of the Nudibranch ID book, so I’ll have to check these names when I get back… but to the best of my knowledge, here is what I saw today.  28 Species in just three dives.

1 - Phyllidiella pustulosa

2 - Favorinus japonicus

3 - Janolus sp. 1

4 - Flabellina exoptata

5 - Hypselodoris tryoni

I also included this photo because these two are slime trailing each other.  One has lavender parasites in its gills and the other has little orange dots.  And their spots seem to be different colors.

6 - Phyllidiella annulata

7 - Doriprismatica balut

8 - Samla riwo

9 - Costasiella sp. 5

This is the Shawn the Sheep nudi.  I'll get a better picture of it soon.

10 - Phyllidiella granulata

11 - Phyllidiella lizae

12 - Plakobranchus ocellatus

13 - Goniobranchus albonares

14 - Pteraeolidia semperi

15 - Phyllidia varicosa

16 - Thuridilla gracilis

17 - Hypselodoris maculosa

18 - Phyllodesmium longicirrum

This is what they call the solar nudi because it ingests algae into its cerata and then produces its own food.  Here's a cool article about it from Lembeh Resort:

https://www.lembehresort.com/resort/solar-powered-nudibranch/

19 - Hexabranchus sanguineus

This is a juvenile.

20 - Ceratosoma tenue

These can be variable, so I included another photo.  What gives them away as "tenue" is the broken coloring around the margin of the slug.

21 - Gymnodoris rubropapulosa and 22 - Chromodoris strigata

The beast that is the Gymnodoris is chowing down on the Chromodoris.  Poor thing.

Here is a better picture of a Chromodoris strigata that's not dying:

23 - Goniobranchus geometrica

24 - Glossodoris rufomarginata

25 - Nembrotha cristata

26 - Glossodoris sp. 1  

27 - Glossodoris hikuerensis

28 - Ceratosoma trilobatum

Three Weeks in Alor

Yup.  I'm headed diving for three weeks.  I am super excited.

I'm headed to Alami Alor.

https://www.alamialor.com/

I've been there before and here is what I wrote about it:

I really do think I want to come back here someday.  This is the best time of year for nudibranchs: October – December.  They close this place up mid-December through mid-March since the weather doesn’t cooperate.  So coming during Thanksgiving would be a good idea.

I found this only after I started planning this trip.  How great is this?

I am sitting in the Narita Airport in Tokyo right now.  I have two flights down and three to go.  Here is my route:

Thursday 11/24/2022

6:55am United Flight 2678 Chicago (ORD) to San Francisco (SFO) departs

9:49am United Flight 2678 Chicago (ORD) to San Francisco (SFO) arrives

10:35am         United Flight 837 San Francisco (SFO) to Tokyo (NRT) departs

Friday 11/25/2022

3:00pm         United Flight 837 San Francisco (SFO) to Tokyo (NRT) arrives

5:45pm         United Flight NH835 Tokyo (NRT) to Jakarta (CGK) departs

11:55pm         United Flight NH835 Tokyo (NRT) to Jakarta (CGK) arrives

Saturday 11/26/2022

2:00am Batik Air Flight ID 6540 from Jakarta (CGK) to Kupang (KOE) leaves

6:00am Batik Air Flight ID 6540 from Jakarta (CGK) to Kupang (KOE) arrives

8:15am Wings Air Flight IW 1943 from Kupang (KOE) to Alor (ARD) leaves

9:10am Wings Air Flight IW 1943 from Kupang (KOE) to Alor (ARD) arrives

I know it seems insane but I would much rather fly straight through than stop, get luggage, get to a hotel and overnight somewhere.  I want to just get there and then unpack.

I have a guy meeting me in Jakarta who will help me get through immigration and then I have a prepaid ride.  The only challenge is that they don't help me check into the Domestic Flights.  I'm sure I can manage but by then I may be pretty frazzled.

Gill Guarding

Very cool article about Gill Guarding! 

https://nudibranchdomain.org/nudibranch-gill-guarding

Dreaming...

I am dreaming of slugs and working on planning another trip... So I reached out to Graham Abbott.  His site is back up but no upcoming trips yet.  I stumbled across this link and I just loved reading his Nudibranch story.  

https://www.diving4images.com/info/the-joy-of-nudibranchs/

Blocked from Blackwater... Saved by Slugs

In March 2022, I went to stay with my friend Kelly near West Palm Beach so I could do some Blackwater Diving.  But to my dismay both operators canceled all the dives that week.  The good news was that I scored parking passes to do three Night Dives at the Blue Heron Bridge.  I also did some regular day diving with Pura Vida Dive Shop.  I looked really hard all week and turned up six Nudibranch Species.

1 - Elysia ornata

2 - Pleurobranchus areolatus

I was so excited to find this by myself on a night dive that I was singing underwater.  I cannot resist posting this additional picture of it slurping away.

3 - Flabellina dushia

4 - Hypselodoris picta

Shout out to my Divemaster Emma who knew I had a thing for slugs and showed me this one in a wreck.

5 - Doto varaderoensis

6 - Flabellina sp.