419 Dive Log Australasia AUGUST 2026

manta rays in many parts of the world, that feeling has never grown old.

Life Between the Flybys The mantas, however, were not the only attraction. Between their visits I explored the reef more carefully. Large sea fans projected into the current. Schools of anthias hovered over branching corals like clouds of orange confetti. Cleaner wrasses busily attended their stations while butterflyfish and surgeonfish queued patiently for inspection. One section of the ridge stopped me completely. It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t deep. It was simply covered with an astonishing field of sea anemones. They stretched across roughly thirty by forty feet of reef, so densely packed that it became impossible to tell where one animal ended and the next began. Every available space seemed occupied. Each anemone hosted its own resident clownfish. Dozens upon dozens of them. Well over fifty individuals darted among the tentacles, defending tiny territories from neighbors only inches away. The reef shimmered with constant movement. Finding a composition became challenging. Every time I thought I’d settled on the perfect angle,

something distracted me. Usually a manta ray. More than once I became so engrossed photographing clownfish that an enormous shadow suddenly drifted over me. I would look up to find another manta passing only a few feet overhead, seemingly curious about the photographer who had stopped paying attention. It almost felt deliberate. As though they knew precisely when my eyes were elsewhere.

Occasionally you will be rewarded with a special moment such as this overhead pass of a Manta Ray

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Dive Log Australasia #419 August’26

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