Wakatobi, Sulawesi: the Diving Part III

Wednesday 15 October, 2008:  All three of these sites were excellent, though we were told that we didn't really dive the main area of Roma which did bring that dive down a little. 
Cornucopia - 25.5m; 70 minutes
Lots of nudibranchs here.  Two very cool purple flatworms, too.  I had asked our guide, Yahn, to find me some coral crabs as I hadn't seen any yet - and BANG, right out of the gate he came across one.  It was the only one he found, but I was happy.








I'd gotten a bit too much sun over the past few days so spent my surface intervals completely covered up!

This oragutan crab was so cool.  He started out on the bubble coral and was waving his arms around and kind of bouncing up and down.  Suddenly, he launched himself off the bubble coral and danced through the water column as he floated down.  He reached out and grabbed a bit of something or other and settled on it happily.  It was pretty neat to watch - didn't know they did things like that!



The Zoo - 25.4m; 73 minutes
My roomie said that the Zoo rocked when they dived it so I was very excited to hit the water here.  It was a very good dive, but we didn't encounter nearly the variety of things they did and we didn't find the frogfish (anglerfish), which is always a bummer!  I could have easily poked around on this site multiple times.










Roma - 19.9m; 71 minutes
Started really blah and really wasn't until well after halfway through the dive that it started to get interesting.  Wish we had started there instead of meandering around that first bit.  Guides told us that we weren't really on the main site for part of the dive, never did really understand why.







Thursday 16 October, 2008:
Kollo Soha Beach - 14.9m; 73 minutes
A very nice dive with plenty to see.  I'd probably go back if the unusual stuff (for me) that we saw were regulars there. Yahn found the teeniest green frogfish (anglerfish) - it was so adorable, but a bear to try to take a photo of! This is also the site for the rare brown pygmy sea horse that they've just discovered.






Dunia Baru - 22m; 74 minutes
I reallly enjoyed this dive site. I'd go back for sure! I had a great time just watching some big eyed fish chomping away on Mary's bubbles at the beginning of the dive before I even started searching for critters.








Dives done by other boats that we did not get to do: Turkey Wall, Fan Garden, Fan 38 West, Starship and Magnifica.  There are many other dive sites that none of the boats visited as there are only so many places you can see in one week!