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Sunday, December 24, 2017

A Land Down Under - Day 7 Diving

December 23rd

Here we go!

 Off diving again!

 Today's first dive is at Milln Reef to the left.

Here's a bunch of pretty coral. Sadly lots of the coral was dead around the dive sites.

 These were called Humbugs. This fact is funny.

   Blue fish, black fish, grey fish, coral etc.

 Hello little fish.

A little coral volcano and an electric blue fish.

 Yellow fish again!

 Someone is hiding in the crevices of the rocks.

Spotted fish.  I'm gonna call this one... a leopard fish.  He was the one hiding in the previous photo.

 Butterflyfish of some sort.  

They kind of look like they have yellow mohawks.

 Vast blueness.

Playing on the reef.

 Parrotfish playing on the reef.

 Fish and corals.

 Not the prettiest of the fish, but still a very good fish indeed.

All the fish were going towards this cluster of coral.

Maybe they were having a party.

 This fish has chosen to move off the coral into the big scary ocean.

Little blue fish hiding from bigger fish. 

 A filefish or something hiding in the blue coral.

 It's escaping the blue coral.  It's been spotted.

 Hello, fish!

 This was the best photo of this crazy colored fish. It kept swimming away from Dan.

 Different colors of elkhorn coral.

 More Humbugs!

A Giant Clam!
  
 I was amazed at the color of the mantle.

 Shelf coral make a great hang out for little fishes.

 This one has a striped mohawk.

 Little black fish. Also a fish with an orange nose in the middle. 

 So many fish!

 The black fish are kind of hard to see.  They seem like shadows.

 These are some very weird looking fish.

 A Wrasse!
   
 He was a pretty big dude.

 What's this island of color in all this coral?

 An anemone with resident clown fish.

 Hello!

A neighbor lemon fish came by to say hello as well.

 I think we've overstayed our welcome.

 There's some grumpy looking fish up here.

Someone is getting his teeth cleaned.

Fishes!

And another giant clam!

Vwoooop!

A view off the back of the boat.  There's a few snorkelers out there while we have lunch.

 Dive 2, Milln Reef to the right.

Little lemon fish.

 Goth fish.

 Stripes!

 Lots of stripes.

 ALL the fish!  Well...many of the fish....in this immediate area.

 Me trying not to flail.

Giant Clam!

 A yellow and blue fish.

 Coral!

 Pink and green coral, blue fish.

How did you get in there giant clam?

 This fish looks like it's about to yell at me to get off its lawn.

 Snorkeling is great here too.

 What in the word is that?

 It's a whole mass of tiny fish.

 A big spadefish.

A less colorful giant clam.

 Two little green fish in the dead coral.

 That's a different looking fish.

 It looks like it's going to a formal event.

 Optical illusion!  That's not a shadow, it's a different fish.

 A fish with a nose and a very striped fish.
 
 Hello nosy fish.

 Super striped fish!

 Angelfish of some sort.

 There's a different colored fish.

 It has fun fins.

Woo fish.

 Hello grey fish.
   
Corals!

 It's interesting how there are clusters/islands of coral and then lots of nothing.

 Are these clown fish going home?

 Yup, they went home.

We're going to head back to the surface now.  Bye clown fish!

Dive along with us.

And now for another break.

Our third dive is to Thetford Reef.

Butterflyfish?

This site was kind of murky.

You had to get pretty close to things to get a clear view.

It's a different yellow nose fish.

A sea fan.

All the little fish are gathered around this one spindly coral.

These guys look like they have big buck teeth.

A moorish idol.

It's got a crazy dorsal fin.

A lot of the coral here wasn't doing well.

Bubbles up through the coral.

Medium sized silver fish.

There were still a lot of fish despite the poor health of the coral.

Coral in coral with fish.

These look like little flowers.

Looking down, there's a graveyard of dead coral on the bottom.

Hey, it's another one of those formal looking fish.

It was pretty sad here.

Another wrasse, and a guy with a dive camera.

I don't think we've seen one of these yet.

That's a fish.

Go sea cucumber, go!

Dan on our way back to the mainland.


This concludes our adventures for today.