DIVE LOG Australasia

A small painted frogfish was one of several frogfish encountered during our stay here.

After all of this and more during the first twenty or so dives of the trip, it was the last dive that produced something amazing. A massive school of silver fish I’m yet to identify, tens of thousands strong, was charging around the slope at a dive called Jayan. We’d just left the small wreck when we encountered them, over fifty thousand fish strong, and they were on the move. They charged past us, then swirled around and charged back. Thick enough to make it totally dark as they passed overhead. It was obvious that something was chasing them, so I started to look for the predators. About twenty sharp-nose emperors were under the school, congregating together and charging in mass hoping to pick off a straggler. Though it was the predators coming from above that worried the school the most. About a dozen frigate tuna were patrolling the perimeter, then darting into the school to grab a mouthful. Fast. The first time I spotted one it was just a blur as it steamed past a couple of metres away, and it took several passes before I spotted what they were. These small tuna can really move! I managed to get one shot of them before

The Padang Bai area also had a wide variety of nudibranchs.

A many-host goby rests on a sea pen.

A yellow-spotted snake eel hunting out in the open. We saw two doing this during our stay.

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DIVE LOG Australasia #408 - October ‘24