9/10/10
I felt so lucky, we had the ultimate critter loving group one could ask for!
What a great trip we’ve had so far. 12 days in Ambon, full on critter hunting and now more to come starting tomorow when we head of on our Beyond Komodo Critter Cruise.
Sadly the internet connection over in Ambon failed numerous times and my laptop went down for a while too which meant I was unable to keep a ongoing log like I wanted.
In short, we found tons of really cool animals such as wonderpuss, mimic and poison occelate (Mototi) octopii, cuttlefish in all shapes and sizes including many flabouyant including the tiny and colourful juveniles, even mating pigmy cuttlefish, just about the scorpionfish one could shake a stick at came out including two species of Rhinopias and the much loved brilliant red Rhinopias eschmeyeri with some fantastic environment shots by Shannon Conway (gallery to come very soon). We watched some fantastic behaviours including a bobbit worm eating a lionfish and surprisingly enough this was right in the middle of the day. We saw plenty of frogfishes in a huge range of shapes and sizes, (sorry to have to tell you Hanna-personal joke she knows well though!) but once again the Psychedelic eluded me. Some of the group had seen it previously, others hadn’t! Being divers who understand that marine life is after all a part of nature we weren’t all that bothered about not seeing it, in fact no one really mentioned it too much we were having such a great time hunting for anything and everything else down there. We know that Ambon is not going anywhere and we’ll be back another day and we all know that there is plenty more out there we have yet to find…
And as for our nudibranchs – It was great to find a few more species of nudibranch new to us and a few we have yet to identify. The enthusiasm of this group was great, we even had some of the other guests at the resort joining in and getting excited with us!
We had a fantastic highlight video produced for us already that we even managed to check out on our final evening, thanks so much to Nannette! Everyone who joined contributed to the nudibranch count and our total count was right by my estimate of 130 species. Not a huge amount, but for such a small area, only a few miles radius from the resort not too bad. So far 132 though we’ve yet to go over all the images, video grabs against ID books.
Big thanks go out to Andy and his crew for making all this happen and arranging a great land tour on our final day of off gassing. Havis’s village and the fresh water river eels are a must do for anyone heading out that way. For those who enjoy scenic drives, the north coast is also a great highlight with some lovely little villages along the way. Huge respect also goes out to Havis for being such a wonder of talents, he really is the sweet’n’swooning vocalist of Ambon. If you’re lucky you might just get to experience one of his live & truly unplugged sessions while dining.
03/10/10
Why Nudibranchs?
There are many reasons for organising dive trips specifically for these very unique animals. The main reason for me personally is that I can always find something new for those who join. On every trip when we search in the right habitats and environments we can find an animal that we have never seen before and maybe even an animal that no one else has seen or photographed. For those who have been diving a lot around the world and even a lot around Indonesian waters we can still make sure you see something new. This is one of the biggest highlights of critter hunting. Also, for beginner photographers these have to be the easiest animal to get easy images of and great photographic images from the get go!
It’s not all about nudibranchs!
As we are searching for small animals in a variety f habitats we tend to come across a whole range of other animals too. Often we find just about all the classic highlight critter that dive guides and marine enthusiasts search for all the time.
More for the future…
I’ve found that these specific nudibranch trips have been so successful and satisfying for those joining that I’ll be running these trips annually from now on. Each time I will be bringing along a nudibranch expert who can also enhance these trips even further by bringing with them their expertise…
The good thing is that over the years I’ve found dive sites that are specific for nudibranchs and now we have the chance to go and explore with super keen branchers for these wonderful animals
The alphabetical list as of 03/10-10:
1 Aegiris exeches
2 Aegiris sp.2
3 Aegiris villosus
4 asteronotus mimeticus
5 Ategema intecta
6 Berthellina ??
7 Bornella stellifer
8 Caloria indica
9 Carminodoris estrelyado
10 Caryophyllidia dorid/halaxa like
11 Ceratosoma gracililium
12 Ceratosoma sinuata
13 Ceratosoma tenue
14 Ceratosoma trilobatum
15 Chromocoris cf. Michaeli
16 Chromodoris annae
17 Chromodoris burni?
18 Chromodoris fidelis
19 Chromodoris geometrica
20 Chromodoris hintuanensis
21 Chromodoris inornata
22 Chromodoris joshis
23 Chromodoris leopardus
24 Chromodoris magnifica
25 Chromodoris preciosa
26 Chromodoris reticulata
27 Chromodoris sp.
28 Cratena white ?
29 Cuthona sp?
30 Dermatobranchus albus
31 Dermatobranchus sp.12
32 Dermatobranchus sp.7
33 Discodoris boholensis
34 Dolabela auricularia
35 Doto rosacea
36 Elysia sp.20
37 Favorinus tsuruganus
38 Flabellina
39 Flabellina bicolor
40 Flabellina exoptata
41 Flabellina riwo
42 Flabellina rubrolineolata
43 Flabellina sp.2
44 Glossodoris atromarginata
45 Glossodoris cf. sp.3
46 Glossodoris cincta
47 Glossodoris pallida
48 Glossodoris rufomarginata
49 Glossodoris sp.
50 Glossodoris sp.
51 Goniodorella cf. savignyi
52 Grey like halaxa
53 Gymnodoris citrina
54 Halgerda malesso
55 Hexabranchus sanguineus
56 Hypselodoris emma
57 Hypselodoris infucata
58 Hypselodoris maculosa
59 Hypselodoris zephyr
60 Hyselodoris cf sp.5
61 Jorunna rubescens
62 Marionia sp.13
63 Mexichromis multituberculata
64 Nembrotha cristata
65 Nembrotha kubaryana
66 Notobryon sp.2
67 Noumea sp.4
68 Pectenodoris aurora
69 Pectenodoris trilineolata
70 Phestilla lugubris
71 Philidiopsis cardinalis
72 Philinopsis pilsbry
73 Phyllidia coelestis
74 Phyllidia ocelata
75 Phyllidia pustulosa
76 Phyllidia varicosa
77 Phyllidiella nigra
78 Phyllidiopsis striata
79 Phyllodesmium briareum
80 Phyllodesmium fluoro
81 Phyllodesmium jacobsonae
82 Phyllodesmium longicirrum
83 Phyllodesmium magnum
84 Phyllodesmium ruddmani
85 Phyllodesmium serratum
86 Phylodesmium poindinmiei
87 Platydoris cinerbranchiata
88 Pleurobranchus forskalii
89 Pleurobranchus peroni
90 Pteriollidia ianthina
91 Risbecia tryoni
92 Rostanga ?
93 Sagaminopteron psychedelicum
94 Stylocheilus striatus
95 Thecacera picta
96 Thorunna furtiva
97 Thuridilla albopustulosa
98 Thuridilla gracilis
99 Thuridilla lineolata
100 Trapania euryeia or tora
101 Tritonia sp.4
This list is now up to 132 species from Ambon alone and will be updated shortly!
Reference: Gosliner, Behrens & Valdes – Indo Pacific Nudibranchs and Sea Slugs
29/09/10
Wow, at last, a few issues slowed me down but now I’ve managed to get things working. First of all some great news regarding airlines here in Indonesia, well not all of them, but at least one has taken the initiative to now look after divers. We looked into the airlines who were flying into Ambon now and after some phone calls and a meeting we worked out that Lion Air were offering divers free overweight baggage. I still wasn’t satisfied that this would happen so we made sure to get an email confirming this and without any hassle or waste of time Lion Air went ahead and sent an email confirming free overweight baggage for our divers. Oh wow, it was so refreshing to check in without the hassle of negotiating overweight baggage and going to and from the check in desk with payments and receipts. I made sure to do the usual and check in as a group making sure to try my best to charm the folks behind in the counter into making sure our baggage would be priority and guaranteed to get on the plane. In Indonesia, just as it is anywhere these days, luggage doesn’t always follow along with the divers.
Our flights went smoothly, a few hours in Makasar airport passed by quickly enough with some snacks and drinks and eventually we arrived in Ambon. Upon arrival we were welcomed by the Maluku Divers staff we I simply handed over our baggage tickets and let the porters do their work. We were all very happy to see our luggage safely come round on the conveyor belt, then after a short 10 minute drive to the resort we were welcomed again, this time with a drink, plenty of smiling faces from the staff and the usual dive forms and paperwork to fill in. It was great to see that many of staff remembered those in the group who had previously joined me on trips at the other locations that Maluku Divers had prior to this all new REAL dive resort.
Even though most of the group of hadn’t booked a dive on the first day, eventually 7 out of 15 of us became itchy to get in and dive for a night dive. I’ll go into the diving more tomorrow but let’s just say we’ve seen plenty of amazing critters and so far we’ve came across at 42 different species in only 4 dives and already at least one nudibranch that I’ve never seen as well, not too bad eh!
27/09/10
It all starts with packing all that dive kit, spares, ID books and trying to find room for some clothes and other bits’n’bobs…