Dive 12 – Dolphin House
Dive: 94
Duration: 57 mins
Avg Depth: 13.18m
Max Depth: 30.2m
Finally we see a bright and sunny day for the first time in this trip. Strangely I wasn’t particularly in a photo shooting mood so I just cruise along and enjoy the dive. Since there are just 2 dives today instead of the usual 4, I venture down a bit deeper today to see what else came along. Unexpectedly, a school of rigid shrimpfish awaits me about 30m down the wall. I wasn’t quite expecting them as I usually see razorfish around reef with hard bottom at much shallower depth.
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| Rigid Shrimpfish (Centriscus scutatus) at Dolphin House (30m) |
Towards the end of the dive while hanging around to “suck my air dry”, I try my luck on some macro shooting with 2 stacked INON UCL-165 close up filters. Was hoping to find some pygmy seahorses to try this out in this trip but couldn’t find any. Desperate to try, I guess even the pygmy goby is better than nothing. Phew, it sure wasn’t easy focusing with the stacked filters.
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| Neon Pygmygoby (Eviota pellucida) at Dolphin House (6m) |
Dive 13 – Tongo point
Dive: 95
Duration: 68 mins
Avg Depth: 9.82m
Max Depth: 20.7m
It was our last dive for this trip and was told there was some Flame Scallop at where we start our dive. Hence once we descend, our DM brings us straight to a ledge on the wall. It was a small area so we got to take our turns. As I’ll usually take the longest for photos, I’m the last in line. Bad move as it was a fine sandy bottom around the ledge. In no time, the place was badly silted up. The DM was pretty considerate to bring me further into the ledge where another flame scallop is at but unfortunately, the whole place was already totally silted even this “exclusive” area wasn’t spared. The Flame Scallop was quite something which I’ve never seen before and the amazing thing about it is that it gives a display of electric blue like light from within its shell. I’m not sure if that is the case but it seems to be “triggered” more by external light source when I point and wave my light at it.
After I’m done, it was only me and VT still around while the rest have already move on towards the south of the wall. Again I was mostly just enjoying the dive without much shooting for this last dive. RL spotted a juvenile sea cucumber which we initially thought were nudibranch. I also saw some green bubble corals in some shaded depression in the wall. Usually I see them in the usual creamy white colour and this is the first green ones that I’ve saw.
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| Juvenile Blackspotted Sea Cucumber (Bohadschia graeffei) at Tongo Point (15m) |
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| Bubble Coral (Plerogyra sinuosa) at Tongo Point (7m) |
There was some commotions when we’ve ascend and got back to the boat. Apparently one Caucasian couple have dropped their camera. Gosh! The guy has just spoken to me the day before and I knew from him that they’ve just gotten the E-PL1 and housing (same as mine) from I think Cebu or somewhere. It seems like they didn’t secure the housing to their BCD and it dropped, along with an INON strobe during this dive. What an expensive lesson that totally spoils their trip. So for everyone else, please remember to properly secure your camera and stuffs when you go diving.
Underwater highlights from the trip
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