dancingfish news

Lembeh has many resident octopuses. Both the wonderpus and mimic octopuses live here. We were hoping to see one of these during our trip, and have had only very brief glimpses of them before. Today, our octopus hunter guide, Liberty, found us a mimic octopus to play with for several minutes. Here are a couple of photos..

Here are a few more recent photos..

Flambouyant cuttlefish:

One of my favorite critters, the bobtail squid:

One of the creepiest faces in the sea, the stargazer:

And one of the cutest, a bargibanti pygmy seahorse, in the more unusual color of yellow:

I have been on a quest to get a decent mandarinfish shot since…forever…it seems. I’ve been on several mandarin dives, but it seems that something always goes wrong, and I don’t get my shots. Mandarinfish are hard to shoot anyway, as they come out only at dusk, to mate, and are very shy. You usually only get a few seconds at a time to setup and take a shot, and focusing at dusk is not easy. They are light shy, so a focusing light, unless a red filter is used, isn’t possible.

Here in Lembeh, I feel I’ve finally gotten a couple of acceptable mandarinfish shots. Hallelujah!

We are now at Kungkungan Bay Resort in North Sulawesi, Indonesia, along the Lembeh Strait. Our second day of diving, and I took in the digital setup, so I have a few photos to share…