Another New Nudibranch

If you ever see me underwater and I'm stuck in one spot, taking picture after picture of something that you can't even see, it probably means I've found a nudibranch and I'm happily snapping away. I've learned that even if I think I've seen the nudibranch before, I still need to take a bunch of pictures of it, because there are a bunch of nudibranchs that all look very similar, and honestly I can't tell the difference. Such was the case with the nudibranch pictured above. I saw it on our Mother's Day dive at Lau Lau. It looked like several other nudibranchs I've seen countless times, Phyllidia elegans, Phyllidia madagensis, etc. But I took several dozen pictures anyway, because you just never know. I always submit all nudibranchs I find to the http://www.nudipixel.net/ website, and say "I don't know" for the ID, I figure I'll let them determine what it is and let me know. That's exactly what I did with this guy, only to find out it was a brand new nudibranch for me, it's a Phyllidia tula. So I was quite excited when I found that out.I did the same thing with this nudibranch I posted several days ago that I found on a Grotto night dive. It turns out I have found one of these one time before. I was at about 105' at Lau Lau and I turned over a big rock, and there he was, stuck to the bottom of it. The one at Lau Lau was all bunched up and not elongated like this one, but it is the same thing Dendrodoris elongata. But thanks to Erwin Kodiat at nudipixel, I got a positive ID on it and now know what it is. I am keeping all the different species of nudibranchs I come across filed in their own gallery on my smugmug online picture gallery at http://www.saipandiver.smugmug.com/ You can go there and click on the nudibranch gallery to see all the various species I've come across so far.And I was quite excited when I came across this Glossodoris tibeoli at Lau Lau on Mother's Day as well. It's only the 3rd one I've ever seen, and it was a great specimen just crawling along on a rock, so I got a bunch of very good pictures of it. I'm turning into some kind of a freak though, the second I saw it, I was thinking, Awesome - Glossodoris tibeoli, yup, I even had the latin name on the tip of my tongue. Most divers just swim right by these guys never seeing them or giving them a second look, but I think they're quite fascinating if you spend some time just observing them. I'm getting ready to place an order to buy some of Neville Coleman's Nudibranch Encyclopedia which has just recently been published, and contains about 20 of my nudibranch shots in it. I'll be getting it for quite a bit less than the advertised price as I'll be buying in bulk and he's offering me a price break as a contributor, so if you'd like a copy, please contact me and let me know, and I'll get back to you with the price I can get it for. And if you'd like to see what it's like before commiting to buying one, just let me know, I have a copy you're welcome to check out first.

Mother's Day Dive

I never thought I'd see the day when Kelli would want to go diving over anything else, but it's finally happened. So when I told her about a boat dive to Bonzai & Spotlight on Mother's Day, and that there was a good possibility we'd see dolphins, she said to sign us up. But sometimes mother nature throws you a curve, this time it was in the form of a typhoon off to our west a bit. That meant that we were getting pounded by big waves on the west side of the island, and the boat dive got cancelled. We were both disappointed for a few minutes, until we saw the waves that is, then we were both very thankful we weren't going to be on a boat in them. But when diving is bad on one side of the island, it's generally good on the other side, so we decided to just go to Lau Lau. But since it was Mother's Day, Kelli decided to tell Sarah & Chris she wanted them to go with us diving. Chris was all for it, but you could tell it wasn't Sarah's first choice. She did finally consent to go though, and I think she even enjoyed herself. In the picture above you see her heading into the fish ball at Lau Lau.Here you see Sarah and Chris surrounded by fish. The fish ball seemed to have everybody's attention so we just hung out there for a while and became part of the fish for a while. There is something very cool about being in the middle of thousands of fish swirling in a ball when they just let you become a part of them.

Here you see Kelli and Sarah, mother & daughter enjoying a fishy Mother's Day. I have people ask me all the time, aren't you scared down there, aren't you worried about things that might get you? The answer is no and no. It is so peaceful underwater, it is truly like escaping to another existance. I'm always looking for new things, something I haven't seen before. I never get tired of it and I never get bored.And here you see Chris & Sarah with the fish ball just barely visible in the background. They are evidently doing some kind of underwater communication. I have to admit, my underwater communication skills aren't the best, especially when I'm on the receiving end. It was certainly one of the more memorable Mother's Days I can ever remember, and I think everybody had a great time underwater. I'll share some of the other sights from the dive on tomorrows blog.

Another Grotto Night Dive

This is a polyclad flatworm, not a nudibranch. These are flat and have no rhinopores or gills. They are a fairly common sighting on a night dive in the Grotto, but you'll occasionally see them on day dives as well.This is a fairly common shell to see on night dives, it's a Cypraea Carneola. They will typically be about an inch long, have a rich golden color and some light bands going across the width of the shell. This guy did not have his mantle fully covering his shell, which makes him stand out when a light hits him.This is a banded candy cane shrimp. They are a very common sighting in little holes and in between rocks. This guy looked like he was asking "what are you looking at?" He wasn't the least bit timid and didn't back away at all when I put my camera up close to him to get a macro shot.This is a Bornella anguilla nudibranch, the big one on the right that looks like a little dragon with a cool pattern on it. The little snake like looking thing on the left is something I never saw when I was taking the pictures, it was too small. It wasn't until I got home and started looking at the pictures on the computer that I discovered it. I have no idea what it is, but I'm assuming it's some kind of a little worm.This crab was just hanging out on a coral covered wall looking for his next meal. Even though most of the critters down there have some amazing camouflaging abilities, once you train your eyes and get used to looking for certain characteristics, you'll be amazed how things just pop out at you.But this is what I got the most excited about on the dive. We went quite a bit later than what I normally start my night dives, we didn't hit the water until about 9 pm. That gave the critters extra time to come out and start moving around. This is a nudibranch I've never seen before, he has interesting rows of gills going up and down his body, and has two very clear rhinopores at his head. I have submitted him to nudipixel.net, but at this point they list him as an unidentified species. Hopefully they'll come up with an ID for him in the next day or two and I can give it to you here.And I just saw this guy for the first time on my last night dive, it's a Pleuredhera haraldi. They are fairly small, and blend in with the sponges on the rocks, so they are very hard to spot, unless you get lucky enough to catch one as he is moving. You certainly see a different variety of critters the later you go though, so I'm going to have to do some midnight dives coming up I can tell.And this is the license plate number of a blue and yellow 20 passenger mini bus that was sitting down by the side of the road in the Grotto when we pulled in. While I was diving outside the Grotto, I had some fishing line and a sinker go whizzing past me in the water. So I suppose it's possible that it's just a coincidence this old beat up bus with expired license plates was down there late at night, and there were illegal fishermen there at the same time, but I seriously doubt it. We went looking for them on the cliff line, but I think they hid when they heard us coming. And yes I did call Fish & Wildlife, I'm curious to find out what the outcome of that was, but they did show up.

Sharks, Sharks, Sharks at Wing Beach!

Late last Thursday afternoon, I went back to Wing Beach since it was a -0.7' low tide, that's just too good to pass up. There were a couple groups of tourists out there just coming in as I started heading out. After the first group passed me, I was surprised to see this big white tip reef shark following them by about 50 yards, and then there was another group of divers about 50 yards behind him. He was out of sight of both of the groups of divers, but I got several good shots of him before he took off into the shallows.About half way through my dive, I was swimming back out to a ledge where the bottom starts dropping away fairly quickly when I had a feeling there was something there with me. I looked up and saw this guy keeping a respectable distance from me, but just going back and forth. Sharks have never scared me in the water, I always love seeing them and watching them as they gracefully slide through the water.Then as I was heading back toward the cut at the end of my dive, I noticed this white tip reef shark swimming just off to my right in the cut. Now I can't say for sure whether these were 3 different sharks, or whether it was the same shark just staying fairly close to me throughout my whole dive. I didn't mind, I was just enjoying the chance to get some fairly close shots of these guys as they went cruising by me. This guy got closer to me than any of the rest, at one point he made a pass about 6 feet away from me.This guy went right up into the shallows with me and then came right down toward me as he headed back out. Unfortunately he went so quickly as he turned to come toward me that I wasn't able to get the camera to focus and get a shot off, but I got some nice side shots of him anyway. It is Wing Beach season once again, my favorite time of year for diving and my favorite spot, these guys are a big part of the reason.

Post #200 - Wing Beach Season

I thought it was pretty cool that my 200th blog happened to coincide with my first Wing Beach dive of the year. Wow, has it really been 200 already? How did that happen so fast? It seems like I just started this thing yesterday! But I guess we have covered quite a bit of ground in that time: there was the creation of Marianas Dive by a couple of dive bums sitting at Oleai one afternoon, Harry's Crab Shack was born out of a local controversy, Axe Murderer Tours started getting to be more well known, the lost land of Lemuria was discovered, and of course there were literally hundreds of dive pictures from about 200 dives during that time. I have really enjoyed sharing my passion of diving and everything underwater with you, and as long as there are a couple of people out there who enjoy it, I'll keep going.

I noticed when I was recording the weather Tuesday that there was going to be a -0.6' low tide that afternoon, so I decided it was time to go out and see if I could dive Wing Beach. I couldn't find anyone to go with me, so I did a solo dive. And don't even think about lecturing me about solo diving, all the dive instructors I know do solo dives too. That is not to say that it's for everyone, it's definitely not. But when you have thousands of dives under your belt and you know the location and conditions like your own back yard, well you do what you have to when you can't find anyone else willing to go. You can see from the picture above, that the tide was indeed low, and there were hardly any waves washing over the reef at Wing that day. I have gone there several times in the past and called the dive off because the conditions were not right, but not Tuesday, it was on!No sooner did I lay down in the water and start to head out when I ran into the scorpion fish in the picture above. He was laying right in the beginning of the cut where you head out for your dive. That's the best reason I can think of to wear felt bottom dive boots out there. You do not want to step on one of these guys, it's excruciating!To me, Wing Beach is like a fairy land, much of the coral is pretty shallow, so it gets well lit by the sun and the colors are vibrant. There are also a bunch of very cool holes in the coral, like this one where you'll find fish swimming in and out of. There are dramatic coral turrets sticking up looking like they belong on a castle, there are steep underwater cliff walls that have holes and hiding places everywhere. When you look in the holes, you might see a big moray eel (his name is George by the way), lionfish, bubble coral, shrimp, golden cowrie shells or any number of other exotic things.This is the view as you look down into the crevasse at Wing Beach. It is a long cut in the ocean floor, the top of it is in about 30' of water and the bottom of it is about 85'. If you go down and swim through it, it comes out on an underwater cliff line and continues to drop off to about 120'. Inside the crevasse you'll almost always find lionfish, and quite often green moray eels. When I dropped to the bottom, there were 2 big red lionfish just waiting for me to take their pictures.This was one of the lionfish waiting to greet me, they were both just hoving above the sandy bottom, and both made for great picture subjects. The lionfish have a very potent poison in their quills, which is also excruciatingly painful, however they are not agressive at all, and will do everything they can to avoid you if you get too close.This is the other one that was sitting there at the bottom just waiting for me. I can just sit there watching these guys for quite a while, they are so graceful and exotic looking. I usually just lay there for quite a while waiting for the sediment in the water to calm down so I can get nice clear, clean shots of them. It's not always as easy as just going down and clicking the picture, sometimes you have to be very patient waiting for just the right angle, or for the sediment cloud to settle down.This is the view looking up from the bottom of the crevasse. It is just such a unique dive spot, and usually always has some unique critters to see and take pictures of, but even without the critters, the scenery of the landscape is quite amazing all by itself. Views like this one are just one of the many reasons that Wing Beach is my favorite Saipan dive.As I was swimming along the bottom of the crevasse, this guy came out of his shell and walked right up in front of me. It was like everything down there was volunteering to get its picture taken, which was just fine with me, I was more than happy to snap away.Just as I came out the cliff end of the crevasse, I saw this 5' Napolean wrasse just hanging out there. Unfortunately my camera was set for macro mode, and by the time I got it switched over, he decided to start swimming away, so I just got this fleeting shot of him. But it's always exciting being in the water with something that big.And of course it wouldn't be one of my dives if I didn't find a few nudibranchs to spend some time with. This is a Phyllidia madangensis. He was in about 80' of water just crawling around on a rock.And this was the first time I've seen one of these nudibranchs at Wing Beach, it's a Philinopsis gardineri, I usually see them at Lau Lau. When I first saw him, he was completely above the sand, but was in the process of burying himself so that he could spawn his egg strings which look like cocoons attached to the sand. It was a great dive, and because there is a -0.7' low tide later this afternoon, I think I just may have to go back out for another dive.

Axe Murderer Tours - Sunday Edition

After my 3 dives with Doug on Saturday, I had to go judge the chili cook-off at Godfather's Cinco de Mayo block party that night. What a great way to cap off the day! On the way home my phone rang. It was a guy who had gone to the dive shop I usually get my tanks filled at. He was from Guam, was here for the weekend and wanted to go out diving with his 11 year old daughter, who had gotten certified last year in Palau. (I had to throw in the fact that they were both certified for the dive police out there). He said that the dive shop suggested that he call me and see if I would be willing to let them come along on my Sunday dives. Wait a minute here, did I just hear him right? The dive shop was telling him to call me to take him diving? Was the chili affecting my hearing or my cognitive thinking processes? Did I have too much of the golden tonic used to cleanse my taste buds between bites of chili? After I got over my shock, I told him that I would be meeting some other people at 9 am at the dive shop, and that he and his daughter were welcome to come along as well. Then I went back to being mystified that a dive shop would be telling people to call me up to take them out diving. In the picture above you see Jody & Bailey swimming over the flats at Lau Lau.I took them to Lau Lau, and let them spend some time with the bait ball before heading off to the south of the pipeline, I've been enjoying the coral over there more these days, and plus there are hardly any other divers over there. Then as we came back across, I took them to the Lemuria rock pile, as it is now officially known. They both spent some time looking at it and poking around. Bailey had a small tank on, so she ran out of air quite a bit ahead of the rest of us. I took her back and let her spend a little more time looking at the bait ball, and then I found the Spanish Dancer nudibranch, so I let them see what it looked like as it was swimming. You probably saw the video of that a couple days ago on my post.Hexabranchus sanguineus, or a Spanish Dancer is always a very special sighting, they are just so large and fancy looking. Then I took Bailey and Jody in, got them out of the water, and then Kelli, Barry and I went back out for another 45 minutes and finished our dives. Jody's wife, other daughter and their friend joined us all for lunch at Oleai Beach Bar & Grill, which is the mandatory lunch stop when you're on an official Axe Murderer Tours dive trip. After 3 dives for the weekend, I think I had finally tired Kelli out, but I still had plenty in me, so I agreed to take Jody and Bailey up to the Grotto and let them experience our premier dive. This was the 5th official Axe Murderer Tours dive of the weekend, I believe that is a new all time high for me.Here you see Bailey and Jody coming through the underwater cliff walls and heading back in toward hole #3. They were both raving about what an amazing dive it was afterward, going down to the fan coral cave and up through the serpentine tunnels. It was truly a busy weekend for Axe Murderer Tours, and I'm pleased to say that all victims (I have victims, not customers), seemed to thoroughly enjoy their dives.

Axe Murderer Tours - Dives #2 & #3

When you book a dive trip with Axe Murderer Tours, if you want to dive til you drop, that's not a problem. When Doug comes down from Japan, he likes to hit the water right after I pick him up at the airport, and then he likes to stay in it as much as possible. We did the Grotto first Saturday morning, then we got our tanks refilled, and headed to Lau Lau with Kelli & Fumiko. They were both game for a 2nd dive, which kind of surprised me since the Grotto was the first dive. We went out the main channel rope and hit the bait ball as soon as we got to the end of the rope. The swirling mass of fish were putting on quite the show and there were about a dozen blue fin trevally that kept slashing through the middle of the bait ball, making the fish break ranks and give them wide berth. For those of you who may not have ever had the thrill of swimming in a spinning mass of thousands of fish, I took a little video for you.

It is truly an amazing thing to see those thousands of fish just swirling around in a ball, and then to watch them part like the red sea when the blue fin trevally come in for a closer look. But the fish ball wasn't what Doug had requested to see when he dove Lau Lau. Doug is a fairly frequent reader of my blog, it's his way of keeping up with my dive exploits, and this is where he wanted me to take him.Yup, Doug wanted to check out "Lemuria" for himself. If you don't know what Lemuria is, you'll have to go back in my archives and find it for yourself, but it's something that gave me a pretty good laugh. From this point forward though, especially since I've had divers come to Axe Murderer Tours requesting the "Lemuria" dive at Lau Lau, this strange rock pile shall here-to-fore be known officially as Lemuria! I think we should make it an official dive site on Saipan's list of dive sites.Aside from a wayward spider conch, these guys seemed to be the main inhabitants of Lemuria. I think everybody had fun checking out the rock pile that just sits in the middle of the white sand though. After all, how many times do you have the opportunity to visit the ruins of an ancient civilization? 2 dives on Saturday was enough for Kelli and Fumiko, but not Doug and I, we still had plenty of time left before I had to take them back to the airport for their little hop to Guam, so we headed out and dove Obiyan in the afternoon, and made a 3 dive day of it, a pretty ambitious schedule even by Axe Murderer Tours standards.Here you see Doug just hovering above the white sand bottom at Obiyan. We just did a nice, leisurely drift dive from one rope down to the other, checking out the garden eels and a few of my favorite little caves and swimthroughs on the way as well.If you're going to be playing follow the leader with me, you'd better be prepared to go through a few tight and dark holes. I always like exploring and finding out what is hiding in some of those little caves and tunnels. I think Doug & Fumiko enjoyed their latest Axe Murderer Tours dive outing. It was Doug's 3rd time, so either he's a glutton for punishment, or he's having a good time. I'll just assume it's the latter.

Axe Murderer Tours - Booked All Weekend!

I had quite the busy dive weekend this past weekend. I got an e-mail a few weeks ago from my buddy at Stars & Stripes in Japan, Doug Johnson asking if he could book Axe Murderer Tours for a Saturday full of diving. He said his wife Fumiko was coming down with him and really wanted to dive the Grotto. You may not realize this but Axe Murderer Tours also offers pick up service at the curb at the airport, it's all included in the package price. And since I'm not really a dive guide, and since Axe Murderer Tours is just a fictional tour company, the price is free, a pretty hard deal to beat. I talked Kelli into going with us on the Grotto dive, as she has been avoiding diving the Grotto because of the stairs. Doug was smart enough to tell Fumiko there were just a few stairs, which is probably the only reason she agreed to come. There are really about 115 stairs, and they're not evenly spaced and are fairly steep. In the picture above, you see Kelli in front of the #3 hole in the Grotto. They all absolutely loved their Grotto dive by the way.Here you see Doug watching as Michael and Fumiko make their way out of hole #1 in the Grotto and head out into the open water of the Pacific Ocean. Kelli and I were already out and just watching them all come through the opening.And in spite of the fact that I had 4 people to watch, 3 of whom had never dove the Grotto before, I still managed to find time to find a Phyllidiella pustulosa nudibranch. I didn't really take the time to look for the Halgerda guahan and malesso nudibranchs inside. Well, ok I did look, but I gave Kelli my flashlight and it's pretty hard to spot them without a flashlight.We went out hole #1, went down the cliff line til I spotted a green sea turtle, took a few pictures of him, then I took them down and showed them the Bubble Coral and the giant clam. From there we went down to the backside of the fan coral cave and came up through that. This is what the fans look like as you come up through the hole and head up.This is Kelli outside of hole #2 alongside the underwater cliff line. She had just come up out of the serpentine tunnels that are lined with fan coral and was heading down to re-enter the Grotto through hole #2.And here is Kelli back in the Grotto in front of hole #1. Everybody seemed to really enjoy their Grotto dive and the girls even survived the climb back up the stairs with the tanks on their backs. And not only did they survive it, but they were both game to go get the tanks refilled and head to Lau Lau for our second dive before lunch. Is it possible that Kelli is turning into a dive-a-holic like someone else we all know? I'm not complaining! Dive #2 of Axe Murderer Tours from Saturday will have to wait til tomorrow. Then I'll let you join as I take Doug & Fumiko to a spot they specifically requested from reading my blog. Any idea what they wanted to see?

Spanish Dancer at Lau Lau

As we were heading in from part one of our dive at Lau Lau Sunday morning, I noticed this guy crawling along the rocks, it's a Spanish Dancer nudibranch, or a Hexabranchus sanguineus. This one happened to be a brilliant shade of orange. So I took several pictures of him crawling around on the bottom before I let him give everyone a demonstration of his swimming abilities.Here you see him starting to take off on his journey with his skirt all unfurled. They are called Spanish Dancers because the white fringe looks like the fringe on a skirt worn by a lady doing a spanish dance. They are really quite amazing to watch, and since I realize that most of you have probably never seen one of them do their thing, I took a little video to let you enjoy it as well.

Eagle Ray Video

Of course we all know I'm much too busy diving on the weekends to take the time to download my pictures or do much of a post, so I thought I'd share another of my older videos. This one was of some of the spotted eagle rays at the Ice Cream dive site just outside of the reef in Saipan. I hope you enjoy a little virtual dive.

Night Dives In The Grotto

This is a guaranteed, can't miss sighting on every single night dive I've ever been on out here. The parrotfish like to find little holes to sleep in. They blow a big mucous bubble around themselves and then go totally unconcious, and yes, they sleep with their eyes wide open. But if you look between rocks and back in little holes, you will find these guys everywhere looking just like this.
You will also see little shrimp like this out hunting for a midnight snack. There are several different kinds of shrimp, but very rarely do you see any that look like they are the size you would see in a restaurant. These bottom cleaners are out in force at night though and sometimes there will be quite a few of them all working on the same project.I was quite excited about seeing this guy, it's a Harpa amoretta, and it's the first time I've ever seen a live one. This picture is worth clicking on so you can get a better look. He has little tiny yellow dots all over his mantle and is quite colorful. I was surprised how fast this guy can move. Once I took the first picture, he didn't waste any time at all trying to find a better hiding spot, but I did manage to get in a good 20 shots or so before he completely escaped.I was just doing a broad scan over one of the coral lined walls in the Grotto when I saw this guy, it's a Cypraea Testudinaria, or a Pig or Tortoise Cowrie. I don't know whether I just have the magic touch when it comes to these guys or what, because I've talked with quite a few other divers who dive just as much as I do, and they have never seen a live specimen of this shell. This was the 2nd one I'd seen this past month, and I've probably seen about a half dozen of them in all. So while it's not a real common sighting, I have managed to see my share, and several other divers share as well evidently. In this shot he had his mantle fully covering the shell.Here is a shot of him with his mantle mostly retraced over half of the shell. You get a good idea of what it looks like. The pattern seems to be mostly a hodgepodge of dark blotches and some dark squares, and then it looks like it got a little too close to someone who was spray painting something white, as it has little white flecks all over it. It is truly a distinctive shell and a big one as it is typically 4-6" in length.This was the guy that got me most excited on this night dive though, it is a nudibranch that I didn't have any pictures of yet. I saw him on a night dive a week ago, but my camera had fogged up and I couldn't get a picture of him, so I was thrilled when I found another one and was able to get pictures of him. According to my friends on http://www.nudipixel.net/ they have identified him as Pleuredhera haraldi. That adds one more to my nudibranch inventory for Saipan that have been positively identified. I know there are a lot more that I have yet to discover, but each and every additional one I find is exciting to me. This guy only comes out well after dark, and you're likely to find him crawling around on sponge covered rocks. And this little green moray eel was poking his head out of some of the rocks near the rope in the Grotto as I was looking for nudibranchs, I figured he was wanting his picture taken too. I didn't want to hurt his feelings so I included him as well.And finally I found this slipper lobster tucked into a little hole on the wall, surrounded by coral and sponge. He seemed quite comfortable and happy in his little spot, so I took a few pictures and let him get settled in for the night. I've had comments from people all over the world about seeing things on my blog they've never seen before and getting to enjoy an entirely different world. That is the entire purpose of this blog, I hope you continue to enjoy it!

Another Typical Grotto Dive

I do an average of 3 Grotto dives each week, which I think gives me a pretty good idea of what can be found there on any given day. These pics were all taken last weekend and represent things you could expect to see anytime you dive the Grotto. The picture above is a green sea turtle swimming near some of the big boulders outside of hole #1.This is a fairly small school of Tuna that hang out down the cliffline from the Grotto a ways. They were all up near the surface so I was floating face up to get this shot. I always enjoy just swimming into the middle of a school like that and becoming one of them.I was swimming over the top of one of the huge rock outcroppings outside of the Grotto when this eel poked his head up to say "hi". I find that most of the green morays really aren't that shy if you take the time to let them get used to you and you don't make any fast, erratic movements around them.This giant clam is one of the biggest I've seen anywhere on Saipan. It is outside of the Grotto and has obviously been there for quite a while to get this size. It is tucked into an out of the way spot where you wouldn't find it unless you knew right where to look, which is probably why it has lived this long and gotten this big.And this is a big colony of Plerogyra sinuosa, or bubble coral. This is a fairly uncommon type of coral that prefers living where it gets a good current ripping past it. There is also a fairly big cluster at Wing Beach, but these are the only two places I have seen it on Saipan, although I'm sure there have to be more spots.Unfortunately this is becoming an all too common site outside the Grotto thanks to the illegal fishermen. I spend at least an hour every weekend untangling the fishing line from the coral heads, wrapping it all up and taking it out.And sadly this is also becoming a very common sighting inside the Grotto. The swimmers who come down into the Grotto to party think it's fun to just throw their empty cans into the Grotto when they're done with them. I pick up an average of 6 of these every weekend as well. Tomorrow I'll show you some of the cool shots I got on my night dive in the Grotto last Saturday night.

Illegal Fishing At The Grotto Continues

On our Saturday morning dive, we spent quite a bit of time untangling fishing line, hooks and homemade sinkers from the coral outside of the Grotto. Some of the pieces of fishing line were well over 100 feet long and went from one piece of coral to the next. The illegal fishermen were using pieces of cut up rebar, old spark plugs set into a mold with melted lead poured around them, and chunks of busted up concrete. A little over a month ago, Fish & Wildlife officers arrested 2 Chinese fisherman at the Grotto for fishing in a sanctuary. We were all glad that something was finally being done about it, some of us were getting tired of spending the majority of our dives unraveling fishing line and picking up homemade sinkers.

But then the 2 Chinese fishermen went to court and had to face Judge Mona Manglona. Instead of teaching them a lesson and showing them that this kind of behavior won't be tolerated in our sanctuaries, it seemed as if she was almost apologizing to them in the sentence she handed down. She gave them 6 months in jail, all suspended except for the first 9 days with credit for the 9 days already served. She then placed the defendant on 6 months of unsupervised probation and hit him with a staggering $25 fine. According to the story in the newspaper, in accepting the plea agreement, Judge Manglona said the accused had pleaded guilty to a "rarely committed offense". Absolutely unbelievable!!! Can she possibly be anymore out of touch with reality?

But now the question comes in, who is really at fault, was it Judge Manglona, or was it the prosecutor from the AG's office prosecuting the case? Was Judge Manglona given enough information from the AG's office to make an educated decision. And why did the AG's office choose to settle this through a plea bargain as opposed to actually prosecuting it? Is it because they don't have the time or money? Do they not feel the crime was important enough to merit a trial? If we're not serious about protecting our sanctuaries and enforcing the laws that pertain to them, then why have them in the first place? If we don't have the time or money to follow through on things like this, then let's stop playing games, just get rid of the laws, the sanctuaries and the rules, after all they really don't seem to mean much anyway.

This is the pile of garbage picked up on just one dive last Saturday morning. All the pieces of cut up rebar were used as sinkers for fishing line. There is easily over 300 feet of fishing line there. And I didn't even bother bringing up all the broken up chunks of concrete that were used for sinkers down there. A rarely committed offense? Hardly! Our system is not functioning properly, and our laws have become a sad joke. We just sent the message loud and clear that you might as well go ahead and fish in our sanctuaries because you'll easily catch enough fish to pay the $25 fine you'll get and you'll still make a good profit. And that's only if you manage to get caught. I'm guessing that the Fish & Wildlife officers aren't exactly thrilled about going out to try and catch more of the illegal fisherman at the Grotto now that they've learned they'll only get a $25 fine.

In the meantime, I'll continue collecting the fishing line and cut up chunks of rebar, concrete, nuts and bolts and just hope that a diving tourist doesn't get entangled in the fishing line before I get to it.

Diving Deco Stop

I wind up spending quite a bit of time on the rope in the Grotto doing my deco stops. It's a cool spot to just sit there and watch divers come and go, watch the swimmers above you, and occasionally some pretty cool effects as the sun comes streaming down into the Grotto.Sunday afternoon was one of those times that the sun was positioned just right so that it really lit up the shallow area of the Grotto, and visibility was pretty good, so it made for some cool shots. Here are some Japanese divers heading up after their dive.Did I mention Sunday afternoon was extremely busy in the Grotto? I was just kind of hanging there in about 15' of water and I counted over 40 diving tourists all heading toward the rope at the same time. There were people everywhere. I was down photographing some nudibranchs in the bottom of #2 when all of the sudden the light that filters in through the opening was blocked out. I looked up to see what was going on and there were 18 divers all coming down through the opening, they had totally blocked out the light. Not really my favorite time to dive when there are that many people in the water at once. But once they all started clearing out, a very cool thing started to happen.You can see the last of the divers lined up on the rope getting ready to exit the Grotto as the sun came streaking down into the Grotto. It was as if God had turned on a big spotlight and shined it directly down into the Grotto, the rays of sunshine looked awesome as they penetrated the darkness of the Grotto and gave it an otherworldly feeling.Sometimes the most amazing part of the dive isn't where you're looking for it at all, you just have to learn to always be looking around you and observing the various scenery. I just floated down there for a good 25 minutes enjoying the light show and snapping away. I'm so thankful for the age of digital cameras. Back in the old days I would have already filled up my 36 shots and would have had nothing left to capture the awesome spectacle that was waiting for me at the end. I just never get tired of scenes like that one.

Virtual Grotto Dive

I do have quite a few pictures from this past weekends dives, as well as the Flametree Festival, but I'll wait to start posting them until tomorrow. While I was doing one of my decompression stops at the Grotto, I decided to do a little video of what it is like to head out hole #1, go down the cliff line and then come back in hole #3 of the Grotto. So here is your little virtual dive tour going out of the Grotto and back in again.