Christmas Crazy

I cannot think of anything else I rather be doing on Christmas Day.  This is awesome.

There are a couple of guys with Santa hats on today.  It is very cute. 

The Turks & Caicos diving is much better than I thought it would be.  I’m excited for another day underwater.

I need to start working on using Lightroom as well as Photoshop Elements.  I hear that is the gold standard but I don’t want to lose 10 years of indexing photos.  I was going to try to use both for a while to see what the differences are.  I’ve also been told that Aperture is good, so maybe I’ll look at that as well.

For lunch there was no ice for my diet coke.  Boo hoo.  Because it was so rocky, the ice machine couldn’t do its job.

The crew nicknamed my camera “marionette” because I like to keep the arms floppy and set them up underwater every time.  Other photographers usually keep the strobe arms stiff as they take the camera in and out of the water.

Dinner was turkey.  Phil did such a good job – it was the moistest turkey I’ve had in a long time.  I got really grumpy at dinner though.  There is this guy Jeff who plays his videos during every meal.  I feel that it’s a bit rude.  We should be having dinner conversation, not watching television during a meal.  A few times I tried to start a conversation with the others at the dinner table, but they were really not interested.  I just feel like we really shouldn’t be watching TV during a meal.

Then, it’s cold.  I was just so freaking cold and couldn’t get warm.  I couldn’t in the salon, on the sundeck, anywhere.  That just makes me so grumpy.

Rob got a new setup with a black Sola light and special glasses/filter so he can take phosphorescent photography.  I can’t wait to see how they turned out!

I'm up to my old pranks again.  Alan and I froze Jim’s wetsuit overnight.  We aren’t sure how to present it before the first dive.  Maybe a note on the dive briefing board?

A Slug for Santa

Merry Christmas Eve indeed.  I woke up at 5:30 which is really sleeping in for me.  J

I was the only guest up while James the crew member set up breakfast.  It is really windy outside once again.  I’d just like it to be calm and warm. 

We dove Half Mile and Double D today.  Great dive sites.  I took some really fun pictures.  There were lots of fish under the boat to play around with.

At Double D there was a big grouper who liked to hang out under this alcove.  I found him there on the first dive and he swam away pretty quickly.  So on the second dive I went right back there and he was exactly in the same spot.  He stayed a bit longer but really wanted nothing to do with divers.  On the late afternoon dive I got to photographing a bunch of snappers under the boat and was chasing them.  Before I knew it, I looked around and the boat was nowhere to be found.  Oops.  I surfaced and thank God I did because I thought the boat was in completely the opposite direction.  I gave an OK signal, but I don’t think anyone even noticed that I surfaced away from the boat (and alone). 

On one of these islands are a bunch of monkeys.  As the story goes,  a boat carrying a bunch of animals crashed.  They rescued the people but left the animals.  Most of them didn’t survive but the monkeys did.  Still to this day, they can be found on the island.

Then the night dive was pretty cool.  I found a neck crab and an arrow crab with babies!  But the best part was that I found a nudibranch on my own.  I think that this one was different.  I’m still not sure exactly which one it is.  Of course, I found it right at the end of the dive when I was low on air and bottom time… but I had to get the shot.  I worked so hard at it but only like one out of every five shots was in focus.

I wasn't sure exactly which one this is, but I had Flabellina engeli written down.  After googling it and going to to Nudipixel, I confirmed it.

http://www.nudipixel.net/species/flabellina_engeli/

See Dave Behrens' comment: This aeolid nudibranch is characterised by the 3 large opaque white spots on the head – one connecting the bases of the oral tentacles and one on either side of the ‘cheeks’.

Yup, that's it.

As a sidenote, the picture on Nudipixel is Anthony Hollis'.  I was just diving with him in Sept/Oct on the Cheng Ho and Villa Markisa.  Small world.

I’ve been a pretty bad diver, getting lost and going into deco.  Oops.  But I am having a ton of fun doing it.

At night I wrote a note to Santa and left it out with some cookies.  I hope he brings us something fun in the ocean tomorrow!

Nudi Notice

It is very calm seas today.  Nobody is really seasick anymore.

We had all of our dive briefings.

The first dive site was Rock and Roll and the second one was G-Spot.  Hilarious.  So far, me likey!

There are not as many little critters and creatures here but it is really good Caribbean diving.  We’ve already seen several sharks, a turtle, an eel.  The big thing here is to try to find the male yellow headed jaw fish with eggs.  I’ve already found one but he was very shy and did not let me take any shots of him. 

There are many flamingo tongues.  I am trying to make them interesting but they will never be as cool as the nudibranch.

The crew are a bit older than most crew I’ve been on with but they are a riot.  Dive briefings were often filled with crazy nonsensical things that nobody called them out on.  I found it hilarious but nobody else seemed to get the joke or even ask questions about it.

For example, Rob gave a briefing and talked about all of the Caribbean Penguins we were going to see on this site… and nobody even broke a smile or called him out on it.  People were even trying to guess what he meant by it.  That maybe it was a different type of critter or something.  I cannot believe that nobody called him out on it.

Jim found my hot pink dress on the camera table and decided to put it on and wear it around.  That guy is nuts.

I sat with James and Jeremy at dinner and we traded some silly stories. James is an ER Nurse and has seen a ton of crazy things… like the Xray of some poor patient who had a vibrator stuck way up his rectum and was still vibrating!

Then Jeremy told some stories about the English using their vocabulary instead of American.  He told a story about his smoker friend who got on the airport bus in Atlanta after a long flight in and announced he’d “Murder a Fag” which means really that he was dying for a cigarette.  Oops.

Only four of us went on the night dive but it was awesome.  We saw crab and lobster and an octopus out feeding.  It kept spreading itself out as far as it could and turning white like a ghost.  But about halfway through the dive Cole starting waving her light back and forth non stop so I swam over there… she found a beautiful white nudibranch.  It was AWESOME!!!  I was so excited, but I cannot seem to figure out what kind of aeolid it is.  L   It appears that I only brought Neville Coleman’s ID book on my laptop.  I didn’t bring the “Bible”.  Darn it!

I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think that this is a Dondice occidentalis.  Otherwise known as the Fringe-Back Nudibranch.

TLC in the T&C

I’m in the Turks and Caicos for Christmas.  I don’t expect to see any nudibranchs here as most of them are found in the Pacific… barely any are in the Caribbean. 

On this first night, the seas are rough and we are experiencing some weather here in Turks and Caicos.  But they promised that if we got out tonight, we’ll be in pretty good shape come tomorrow.

I’m on about 2.5 hours of sleep last night.

Yesterday I did my regular shift at Shedd Aquarium, then went to work at 36 S Wabash for a few hours and then went to our monthly Beefeaters Supper Club at Rosebud Prime.  It was awesome and the waitstaff totally loved having us there.

Then we decided it would be fun to go to Four Farthings for a bit.  It was great and I ran into many people I knew, but before I knew it, I didn’t hit the sack until 12:30pm and I had to wake up at 3am.  What the !?@?@?#?

I took Uber to the airport so I didn’t have to touch any cash and I made my flight no problem.  I did have an overweight bag but as soon as I took out the regulator bag, they didn’t give me any more hassel. 

We are full on the charter this week with many people from all over the world.

The Crew is as follows:

Captain                       Amanda

Engineer/Photo Pro Rob

Chef                            Phil

Video Pro                   Cole

Divemaster                Leigh

Second Captain         James

The Guests are:

Nelson and Luana from Redondo Beach

Robert and Sally from Virginia

Thomas and Marie from Canada

Nancy and Jim from Seattle

Sarah and Matthew

Dara from NYC

Takashi and Yuko from Japan

Jeremy from California

Jim from Salt Lake City

Alan from Maine

Jeff from Canada

Dara is my roommate.  She is from New York and this is her first liveaboard.  She’s very excited and very seasick.  She keeps asking me questions about diving and the boat.  It’s nice to remember why I got exciting about the underwater world in the first place.

I let her take the bottom bunk which is fine with me but half way through the night last night, I totally bonked my head on the ceiling.  Ouch.

Flight to the Flipside

Whew.  This is my last day at Villa Markisa before I get on a plane home.

It has been a great trip, but not as relaxing as I thought it would be.  I am going to spend some quality time in the pool with my iPad catching rays.  Yup, I can do that here because there are no splashing kids.  J  They have this cool slanting area to lay back with jets pummeling your whole body.  Very nice.

I am looking forward to getting back, although I already have a very long list of things to do.

I left at 2:30pm for an 8:05pm flight.  I had the biggest goodbye committee you ever saw with Christiane and Anthony and both Martha’s.  I couldn’t believe it.  We are all buzzing about another trip in early 2014.  Graham said he’s already trying to organize something.  Yay!

So that’s it my friends.  One liveaboard.  One resort. 48 dives (which brings my lifetime total to 1381).  238 unique species of nudibranchs and one weary Nudi Gal.

Until the next trip (Turks and Caicos over Christmas – although I’m not sure I’ll see a single nudibranch there)…

Last Look

This is it.  My last day of diving for this trip.  I did four dives today.

I’m still so far behind on all of my species ID and categorizing.  I really do need to upgrade my software and probably hardware as well.  I may go Apple this time.

It was amazing the number of nudi skewers set out on the dives today.  At one dive site, it looked like an avalanche of rocks with stick-and-photographer after stick-and-photographer.

I am now officially a member of SOSH.  So Over Sea Hares.  They are everywhere and just don’t think they are as cute a nudis.

Right by the dining area, there’s a turtle name Camilla. 

There is also a male turtle who has no name, so I suggested Prince Charles.  ;)

I also wanted to share this cool shot of the three amigos:

Note that the one on the right is actually an anemone, not a nudi.

 

Total Tally:

222 - Chelidonura sandrana

Super boring but ups the overall count!

 

223 - Elysia tomentosa

Look like a little green bull.

 

224 - Favorinus sp.

 

225 - Costasiella usagi

This one looks like a lamb.

 

226 - Unknown - Even the experts couldn't ID

This is an alien like nudi that we couldn't find in any books!

 

 

227 - Eubranchus mandapamensis

Oh, Mandy...

 

228 - Cuthona sp.

 

229 - Elysia sp. 20

I love this shot.

 

230 - Doto sp. 9

Donuts?

 

231 - Chromodoris rufomaculata

 

232 - Platydoris ellioti

 

233 - Caryophyllidia dorid

 

234 - Carminodoris bifurcata

It's a party!  There are three in this shot.

 

235 - Armina cf. semperi

I love the detail on this guy.

 

236 - Hypselodoris whitei

Look closely, there is another one underneath.

 

237 - Rostanga lutescens

 

238 - Tritonia