This week in Bunaken… The divers got a cephalopod sensation this week when they ended up among freshly hatched octopus and cuttlefish. During a dive over at the mainland, ‘the muck diving of Bunaken‘, Benita and Janine from Australia all of a sudden found themselves among heaps of tiny little octopus swimming around in the water as well as several baby cuttlefish hiding in the stag horn coral. It is all about being in the right place at the right time! (Photo: Phil Clarke)
To be allowed to experience and study wild animals in their natural environment is something that divers are very spoiled with. But it is not that common that the tables are turned and have the fish study us in our (un)natural environment. Jessica from the US got to experience this during a dive while doing her PADI Open Water course. While swimming along the wall on Lekuan III she all of a sudden had a thicklipped wrasse following her, just swimming a long next to her. When she stopped, it stopped. When she turned, it turned. It actually ended up following her for 40 minutes and all the way up to the safety stop. It truly must’ve enjoyed a bit of people watching! Jessica was sad to wave goodbye to her new dive buddy.
Other great sightings this week has been the white tip reef sharks on Lekuan II that has now grown so much that there’s only space enough for two of them in each little cave. In the beginning all five of them hung out in the same cave! There has also been several large tunas spotted, eagle rays and massive napoleon wrasses. On the small side we’ve had sea moths, ornate and robust ghost pipe fish, plenty of pontohi pygmy seahorses, snake eels and super cute boxer crab with their little pom-poms.