420 Dive Log Australasia OCTOBER 2026

It takes a great deal of patience to get a

Octopus come out to hunt in the darkness

The purpleback flying squid or purpleback squid, Sthenoteuthis oualaniensis, is a species of cephalopod occurring in the Indo-Pacific. It is considered one of the most abundant large squids. This image was captured at night with the bottom 3000+ feet below, a mile off the island of Yap. The squid has captured and is dining on a fish.

The water was flat.

At one point the passage became narrower than our paddles were long.

We passed a traditional men’s house with pieces of stone money nearby and entered a narrow opening in the trees.

There was no engine.

The bright tropical sunlight turned green.

No dive equipment.

Mangrove roots twisted into shallow water. Birds called overhead. In places the bottom was only two feet beneath us. Mangroves are nurseries for the reef. Juvenile fishes shelter among their roots. Archerfish hunt insects above the surface by knocking them into the water with carefully aimed jets from their mouths. Young animals begin their lives here before moving into the larger world outside.

No bubbles.

Only the sound of paddles entering the water.

When we finally emerged, I was surprised to learn we had been gone more than three hours.

Time behaves differently in Yap.

We paddled deeper.

This larval stage of a Stomatopods, mantis shrimp is just two inches long and was photographed during a blackwater drift dive, in open ocean at 50 feet with bottom at 4000 plus feet below, and several miles off the island of Yap.

A crown jellyfish, Nausithoe picta, Guam,

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Dive Log Australasia #420 Oct’ 26