The first "normal" reef dive on this beautiful 19th of July. The reefs here are quite sad, considering that the truly amazing Sipadan is really visible on the horizon. And considering that having been a couple of months now in the Philippines, I am used to the coral reefs meaning coral reefs and not some sandy slopes with occasional spots of coral.
But yes there are garden eels and they usually rest on the sandy bottom. You know the ones who stick their heads out of the sand and then hang left and right according to the current, and then stick their head quickly in to the sand when feeling threatened. Maybe not so cool but when they come in dozens, they can put some amusing entertainment on indeed.
This time my beloved aussie divebuddy found a lobster. Nice spot indeed. Probably wanting to steal the show, he tried to pull the lobster out from his hole by pulling his antenna. Nice idea??? The lobster was left with one antenna less the aussie reeflife destroyer was left with indeed a dumb look on his already creepy face.
The best thing here by far was not the couple blue spotted rays, golden morays or occasional fish but the superbly carmouflaged white frogfish/anglerfish that I managed to find. Looking at the white coral rumble, there was a weirly shaped stone that looked like a fish made of bone. This surely couldn't be anything but a well carmofalged fish, but it still felt more like a stone that could be picked up. Frogfish, even though master of carmouflage, is usually resembling himself into soft coral and not rock or coral rumble. Therefore stonefish or anglerfish come into consideration. Most likely the fellow was however a either the relatively rare a false stonefish which in reality is a scorpionfish, or the devil scorpionfish ((Scorpaenopsis diabolus) to be exact - or the much a like flasher scorpionfish (Scorpaenopsis macrochir) This was a cool one and had never seen one before.
(Example of a devil scorpionfish photographed at: Lembeth Resort - Indonesia by fishx6 from http://www.whatsthatfish.com.
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