Sometimes it's really cool, when you're having a great dive, and then you stumble across something you didn't even know was there. That was our first dive this morning. We were having a great muck dive. All the critters that we normally find on a much dive. Various frogfish, hairy, painted, and just warty. Mantis shrimp out and about for a stroll. A very aggressive titan triggerfish that kept buzzing one of the divemasters. And then there it was. The wonderpus octopus. Now I had absolutely no idea that the wonderpus could be found near Dumaguete, so this was a great surprise for me. It put on a great show, flashing colors along its arms and dancing around a bit. Great way to start the day.
Three more dives brought some more new critters, like pipehorses, porcelain crabs and sexy shrimp (no, I'm not making up these names). We also saw a couple of blue spotted rays today, the first rays of the trip. At lunch we were talking about what was left that we wanted to see here, and Jen mentioned she had not seen a single ray yet. Five minutes into the next dive, there was a ray.
Then the fifth dive of the day, the night dive. We (possibly) found the one thing we were hoping to see more then any other. The divemaster thinks it was, but needs to see the picture to be sure. The elusive blue ring octopus. He was being shy and wouldn't poke his head up for long, and no tell tale blue rings, but they don't always flash blue. We think it was, we hope it was, and we're going to say it was. Mission complete. Just to be on the safe side we found a second octopus on the night dive, definitely NOT a blue ring, but it still took five minutes to pry Jen away from it.
Wrapped up the day with the usual massage. Only one hour instead of ninety minutes. Trying to wean myself off slowly.
One last note. We celebrated the one hundredth dive of one of our group this trip. He made the requisite sacrifice for the hundredth dive. For those of you who don't know what that is, he dove naked for half the dive. No pictures of the celebration. You're welcome.
Tomorrow is our last day of diving, so we're going to finish off in style with a return trip to Apo Island. Stay tuned.
Todays pictures are the two octopuses from the night dive (the second MAY be a blue ring, will try to confirm) the wonderpus octopus, and because it is so colorul, a mantis shrimp.
More to follow...
-Matt
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