More on Sipadan and Mabul (13th - 18th)

Eventhough we spent much of our time diving around the walls of Sipadan, we managed to squeeze some extra time to test out the macro and "muck" sites of Mabul. Plus we had the option of free and unlimited shore divings so it was little surprise that we logged an average of 20-22 dives in just 4 days of divings.

Here are the pictures:

1. A coral laden Hermit Crab, clasping to a Tube Sponge. And a pea crab which was in recluse deep inside the tube decided to come out to say hi. These beauties were found during a drift-night dive at Ray's Point, Mabul. I was unwittingly lured to a depth of 25 meters by a Juvenile Spadefish. Causing me to break out sweats on my brow (under the mask, no kidding!) and shudder vigorously in fear. 25 meters in day light is nothing, but a very different story at night.



2. With its buggy eyes and lovely patched markings, i have long desired to get close to the Whitetip Coral Groupers. They are, however, very shy and would swim away in lightning speed at the first detection of bubbles. So imagine my surprise to finally come up close to this individual at Seaventure, who remained nonchalant to my flood of flashlights the whole time.



3. Trumpetfish, also known as the vertical swimming fish.



4. A Clown Frogfish, one of the most coorperative object to shoot.



5. Freckled Hawfish.



6. The famous Lionfish under the SWV jetty (Sipadan Water Village) aka. Paradise 1. There must have been more than a dozen making the front pillars home. They make very corporative photographic objects so there is no difficulties in getting decent shots of them. The challenge is therefore to get them pose face to face , as the Lionfish prefers to maintain eye contact with us divers, and it takes a little time to get them to turn and face you.



7. A Leaf Scorpionfish. In this picture the flash was placed behind the subject to create a "backlit" effect to show that how compressed the body is. You can almost see through the body "parts", its no wonder this fish is being refered to as a Leaf fish.



8. The Longhorn Cowfish, came and paid us an unexpected visit out of no where, stayed and posed a little bit and scurried away to no where as unexpectly.



9. The comical Moorish Idols. Or i what i would call the Penguin faced fish. One of my all time favourites.



10. Ornate Ghost Pipefish. Nothing scary about the fish, namesake derived from the ability of the fish to camourflage very well to resemble the surrounding corals or featherstars. So much so that they appear ghostly as they momentarily dissappear/reappear to the prying eyes.



11. Broadclub Cuttlefish, extremely friendly. I was up down left right trying to compose shots and he was just cool calm and collected.



12. A Saddled Grouper, supposedly at the cleaning station, being cleaned and pricked by a resendential Cleaning Wrasse. The fish will allow the cleaning ladies to do anything to them. And the fearless cleaning ladies, in returns, would go anywhere including the mouth of the big fish, just to get the cleaning job done. Talk about commitment and work ethics....



13. A juvinile Box fish, this one a female.



14. A SnakeEel Mug Shot. This one in Ambush mode. This is how they hunt: all they do is just burried their bodies in the sand, exposing their head, rest motionless and wait for the prey to come by.



15. A juvenile Pennant Bannerfish.



16. A Yellow Masked Angelfish. It was amazing to see so many kind of Butterfly/Angelfish in Sipadan Sites. Almost every spicies (apart from the Blue Ringed Algelfish) known to me were found here. The pictures in this album are only nearly half of what i saw, the other half were too quick or too coy for my camera. I dont know whether its me or a matter of fact that Butterfly and Angelfish love to taunt us divers. The moment you think you have a great composition going on your beloved subject would inevitably just flick its tail and show you the backside. I think its in their DNA to tease and mock us.



17. Chromodoris reticulata. A kind of Nudibranch



18. Love Touch: Two Nudies engaged in the love making, all they do is just extending out their appendage (aka. sex organ) and let the "bodily fluid" transmit through the "Love Tunnels"



If you wish to view more, please visit my facebook album. Thanks

Wrong chatroom! Admin pls move it... =)

Thanks again for the sharing perry... Read thru this thread feels like watching discovery channel, really learn a lot in it.

Fred wrote:Thanks again for the sharing perry... Read thru this thread feels like watching discovery channel, really learn a lot in it.

yaya... thanks for sharing the photos and your experience with us again...

any luck to see the blue-ringed octopus there?

Hi CJ:

No luck with Blue Ringed Octopus this trip. but we had been informed by someone that there was a sigthing during our stay with Borneo Divers, right infront of our jetty. Alas you need a pair of sharp eyes and some discerning and innate abilitiy to spot the odd things out in the wide expense of sandbed. We tried to look for it, but no luck. Blue Ringeds are very good with camourflage and they only flash the pulsating bring blue rings when they are threathened.

Perry

Perry's mission was not about sighting the blue-ringed octopus.....phewwww...lucky not

Nice set and explanations!