All Night Drama

Moray eel at Sinan Digan.

Matt today wanted to do as many dives as he could because he needed images for an article he was doing for Divephotoguide.com. I agreed to go along with him because I also wanted to get more underwater photos and maybe I’ll learn something new from him.

A very small nudibranch I've never seen before.

For our first dive, we went to “Sinan Digan“ where we went to about 90 feet below with Julio as our Divemaster. It was my first time going to this dive site and it was a nice one. Matt and I took lots of pictures of nudibranchs, moray eel, scorpionfish, and at the end pygmy sea horses. Actually, I was a little disappointed not being able to take pictures of the pygmy sea horses because I was low on air and had to surface. He saw two on one sea fan.

Conch moving around bottom.

Mantis shrimp gazing over horizon.

The second dive was at the “Hills” dive site. We both find a lot of little different things to take photos of on the sandy bottom here. The giant clams are cool to see at first but by now I’m already bored of them. Throughout the dive we saw a pipefish, boxfish, pegasus sea moth, conch, mantis shrimp, jellyfish, and a waspfish which I’ve never seen before.

My first time seeing a Waspfish.

Jellyfish swimming around during our safety stop.

There were two divers I saw underwater that looked very familiar. After a closer look, I noticed the two were Dave and Caroline! Since the IE I always wanted to dive with them and now I got to but for only a short amount of time. The probability of seeing them at the same dive site, during the same time, and in the same area is low. I was so excited I waved hello to them but they didn’t reciprocate the same enthusiasm. Did they know it was me?

The third dive was at “Sabang Wreck” which was also quite good. There we saw a pair of frogfish walking around; yes, they walk along the bottom with their fins. They were in a position I really couldn’t get a good shot of them. Near one of the three wreck we saw a pair of robust ghost pipefish and near them I found a small flounder. Though we didn’t see as much at the “Hills”, it was still a good dive.

Cuttlefish that was right under my nose on our night dive.

The fourth and last dive of the day was a night dive at “Sabang Wreck”. At night, what you see changes quite a bit; different enough where you can go to the same site and have a completely different dive. For this dive I was hoping to see a star gazer fish but didn’t find one. Instead, we saw a cuttlefish, nudibranchs, a large worm-like slug, and several crabs. Seeing the cuttlefish alone made the dive worthwhile.

After the dive, I took a short nap and then met up with Dave and Caroline at Broadway bar. There we shot pool until we were the only ones left at the bar. From what I remember, it was around 2 or 3 AM. At the bar though, Caroline was getting negatively immature texts from her friend Ricky who was jealous she was out with us and not with him. I was really surprised by how immature Ricky was acting considering he is in his 60’s.

Before, Ricky was nice enough to let Caroline stay at his place but now wanted her to move out; their relationship was purely platonic. Dave, Caroline and I talked about the situation for several hours and by the time we were done the sun was rising. Caroline got her dive gear from Mermaid Divers and I let her store them at my place. I went home and took a nap while she went out the Ricky’s place to get the rest of her stuff.

- jason