The Face of the Moray

Pretty good diving conditions again. Water at 86 degrees, light surface chop, some sediment in the water carried by a very weak southerly current. The Durgeons were very active close to the wall section of Casuarina Point Reef. We found again the couple of big French Angelfish we spotted last week. Also the Hog Fish was around.
In an isolated small coral we found a nice size green Moray eel. She let us get very close and for over twenty minutes we could appreciate the work of the cleaning gobies and also observe in detail the moray's face.
Pike blennies were out again right where the highest concentration of Garden Eels were. Greta Dive! Profile: 57 feet max depth; Avg depth 35 feet; Bottom Time: 1:27 Hr.

Bad Pictures, great Dive!

During the last Friday dive I took several pictures with my just arrived camera. Unfortunately I did not have the right settings so the pictures turned out pretty bad. The dive though was very good. We found a couple of "Pike Blennies". One on the sandy bottom of a swim through, the other on the sand flats west of the reef near the Atlantis Sub mooring.
Later on, Tracy found a rare (rare for us anyway) Rough Anemone. I am not sure about the right name yet but, she was odd looking and a great addition to our list of creatures.
Sergio

Friday 4th Dive - Casuarina Point

Friday Dive: We swam in a westerly direction from the cove at Don Foster's Dive. We reached and crossed the sand flats in direction to the edge of the wall. The conchs again were out in full force. It was a Conch Garden! Within many of them we could observe their resident Conch Fish. Also many of them had Mermaid Unbrellas and Sponges growing on their shells. Next to one of this conchs we observed a shellfish literally fly out of the sand,made a long arch through the water to then land about a foot and half from starting point. When we got really close she proceeded to open and close her shell and buried herself until totally covered.
Hundreds of Garden Eels were out as there was a slight southerly current. Jacks and Hog fish were munching on creatures found under the sand.
Once at the edge of the west wall, we saw several pretty big French Angel fish, Tiger Groupers and Trompet fish.
Many chromis aggregations were hanging in about 30 feet of water by the wall and the shallow are at Devil's Grotto. Also there was a big school of Houndfish close to the surface (about 80 of them, all about the same size).
Tracy spotted the two green morays we saw. Both been cleaned by Gobies and Shrimp.
Today we used the big magnifying glass and we managed to observe with detail many of these creatures. One highlight was a fairly large size "Pigmy Filefish" we have been spotting at a certain coral head. All the details of the skin texture were noted with the help of the glass.
Bottom Time: 127 minutes
Max Depth:59 Feet
Avg: 40 feet
Direction: West; North; East; South; East to the DFD Cove

Box Crab and Hermits

On the Friday dive while exploring the sand west of Devils Grotto we came across a small Rough Box Crab. While observing this crab we notice an estrange creature amongst all the hermits that were around. Very small body (half size of a finger nail)with a lobster body shape and two very long arms connected with elbow like features and with pincers at the end. Thanks to Laura from Don Foster's Dive and the Paul Humann creature book, we identified the creature as "Common Squat Hermit". Extremely small but very cool!
Sergio