411 Dive Log Australasia April 2025

anywhere else. I know for sure that I saw somewhere between fifty and a hundred. These very large Mandarin fish live in protected hidey holes in the rocky rubble beneath the pier. Hundreds of dangerous and highly toxic Long Spined Sea Urchins emerge at dusk. This is one place where you have to adopt supreme buoyancy control. I feared for my buddy with his sloppy careless dive skill set. I was surprised that he survived the dive intact. The romance of the Mandarin fish is a sight that is always endearing. They dance in perfect unison up into the water column simultaneously releasing eggs and sperm in a perfect dance of bliss. Males are up to twice the size of the smaller females. They do not seem to mind the torchlight and continue to act as normal, that is dancing the night away. The dive plan was to enter the water well before dark, spend 45 minutes exploring the Mandarin fish site and then heading down to the reef proper. This is where we found a huge gnarly Moray as fat as your leg, some huge Hermit crabs and schools of Razor Fish. The following day, we headed East toward Wakatobi diving the final days on so many great reefs. My report on further adventures on board

Pelagian shall be continued. For more information, go to www.wakatobi.com

DIVE LOG Australasia #411 - April‘25 18

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