Big, bad barracuda

Swarming at Dixon's Pinnacle


The last of my divemaster training series from the Andaman Islands. It’s about time, as I finished DM more than a year ago. *sniff*

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Heads up, barracudas

Hundreds of them riding the current


Great barracuda, hovering above Dixon’s pinnacle…

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Clownfish giving me the stink-eye…

Waiving in the current

A tiny clownfish stares down a giant diver.

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Healthy coral in the deep blue

Undisturbed...

I spent several days diving recently off Panama’s Isla Colon, where the water is cloudy with sediment, corals are sometimes covered in sand, mud and dirt and large schools of fish are hard to come by. This is likely due, at least in part, to the runoff from all the plantation activity in the surrounding country.

I can’t help but contrast that with photo, from Dixon’s Pinnacle in the Andamans, of remote, relatively untouched coral that is clean, free of disease, blue shifting from the depth and unbleached.

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When the stars make you drool… it’s a moray!

Open wide

Johnny’s Gorge. He’s actually just breathing. And he’s substantially more afraid of me than I of him.

But still, these guys are unnerving. Amazing and unnerving.

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Lionfish out for a swim

Lionfish

These guys tend to stick close to reef and shelter during the day, frequently not moving at all and relying on their camouflage and poisonous barbs to defend them.

This one, was out above the reef almost in open ocean for a cruise at Johnny’s Gorge.

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Like a big pizza pie… that’s a moray!

Wrinkly with teeth

All leather and fangs but no actual threat (to divers).

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Lionfish have weird eyebrows…

Am I right?

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100 feet down…

Mesmerizing

…calm blue and fish for days.

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A pair of crinoids

Underwater flowers?

On the left, looking like a sad flower waving in the breeze, a sea lily.

On the right, as though someone clenched a fistful of feathers, a feather star.

They’re part of the same class of creatures, the crinoids, that can either be stalked and attached to the bottom (lily) or free moving (star). And yes, I said creatures. Despite their resemblance to plants, they are part of kingdom Animalia.

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