Guest Post by Keith Ellenbogen, Parsons School of Design

From nudibranchs to crabs to fish, the underwater world of Fiji is renowned for all manner of small creatures that defy imagination with their exotic shapes and colors. They are often lost to the eye in the riot of visual activity of the South Pacific coral reef. Macro photography allows the underwater photographer to focus on small animals, making their beautiful subtle details as noticeable to human observers as the similar easily-seen attributes of larger animals.


Reef Crab, Paraetisus sp.


Spotted Shrimpgoby, Ambiyeleotris guttata

A great example-
When photographing the Spotted Shrimpgoby Amblyeleotris guttata head on, the animal appears to be aggressively staring right at me. However, in reality, its eyes point sideways and the 'front facing pigmented eyes' are a disguise, illusion or impression to scare away unwanted predators. As a diver you might not notice this unless you are able to get very close; a tough thing to do because the fish retreats into its burrow when feeling threatened.


Nudibranch Chromodoris Iochi


Longnose Hawkfish, Oxycirrhites typus

Underwater, when looking at many fishes the coloration of their bodies at a distance appears to be one solid color. However, upon closer inspection, I've often noticed that colors may be a blend of many tones or hues. Case in point--the coloration of the Longnose Hawkfish Oxycirrhites typus, with its red bands around the nose and eye include a blending yellow and orange and even a little accent of green. From a distance, a diver has the impression of one red solid color; as can be seen in this photo, hardly the case!

I find the art of macro photography inspiring as it opens a window into the complexity of an animal's composition that might have otherwise gone unnoticed.

For macro photography I use a Nikon D200,Nikor 60mm or 105mm lens, Sea&Sea underwater housing and YS-250 Strobes.

-Keith Ellenbogen, Parsons School of Design

subscribe

Labels: Keith, longnose hawkfish, nudibranch, photography, reef crab, shrimpgoby

Post by Jody Renouf and Mark Rosenstein

Our first two dives are both in Nigali Passage, a narrow channel through the fringing reef around the island of Gau, known for strong currents and many large fish. The Nai'a comes here every cruise for the sharks.


Photo: Keith Ellenbogen

On our first dive there is just a mild current entering the channel. We have to swim the length of it, passing large schools of barracudas and jacks, and several huge groupers, one with several tiny golden trevally leading as pilotfish. A large blue jellyfish drifts alongside. Near the end of the channel we reach the "Bleachers," where we hold onto the rocks and watch the shark action in the fastest moving portion of the channel. We are treated to eight adult grey reef sharks and about 20 juveniles circling, with a couple of white-tips as well. After watching the sharks for awhile we continue up the channel to the "Cabbage Patch" (a large field of Turbinaria) and then pass into the lagoon where the water is warmer and there is little current.


Photo: Keith Ellenbogen

The second dive is a shark feed. When we drop in there is quite a bit more current than the previous dive. We quickly get into our places on the Bleachers, and Captain Johnathan and Divemaster Richie bring down a "popsicle" of fish heads frozen in a big block of ice. This is tied down in front of us, and the smell quickly brings in many fish: first the red snappers, small wrasses and fusiliers; then the groupers (photo above), and finally the sharks, take an interest.


Photo: Mark Rosenstein

About six adult grey reef sharks (above), all females, circle and occasionally lunge at the food as it thaws. The feeding lasts about 15 minutes, after which we move on through the rest of the channel. On the edge of the lagoon three of us are treated to a quick view of a scalloped hammerhead shark that appears out of the blue, checks us out, and disappears again. Further along the lagoon wall an eagle ray is seen cruising near a 3,000 year-old 30-foot tall head of Porites coral.


Photo: Keith Ellenbogen

While the shark feed (above) is an impressive and exciting display of top-of-the-line predators, we cannot help but note that the numbers of sharks seen on this trip is down significantly from previous years. Even more alarming is the amount of monofilament line we see tangled on the reef; several large hooks and weights are also salvaged, leaving us to wonder who is fishing for what in this relatively remote site.

After lunch we dive Jim's Alley, named for Jim Church who was an underwater photography pioneer. The current is blowing so strongly it's a challenge just to hold onto the reef; not much else is recorded for this dive!


Photo: Mark Rosenstein

Our next dive is at "Anthias Avenue." A similar site, but this time the current is manageable. Here we find several interesting nudibranchs (photo above) and many large starfish. As we work our way up the bommie, true to its name there are huge clouds of purple and orange anthias. A peacock mantis shrimp briefly peeks out of its burrow.

A few people do a night dive in the muck near the island; it's all about sleeping animals, with many individuals of just a few species. Parrotfish are sleeping in their mucous cocoons, with a scattering of odd shrimp and crabs. Other people sit up on the sun--err, moon--deck for an impromptu kava party, or go to bed dreaming of our encounters with elasmobranchs.

-Jody and Mark

subscribe

Labels: anthias, Gau, jellyfish, Jim's Alley, Jody, Mark, Nigali Passage, nudibranch, Parrotfish, Photos, pilotfish, trevally, Turbinaria

Post by Heidi Munzinger

This morning seemed to come earlier than most. Last night after dinner the Nai'a crew hosted a traditional Fijian kava party, and many of us stayed up until midnight singing and enjoying the local "grog."

However, it was definitely worth getting up in time to take advantage of favorable tides and enjoy the first dive of the day at "Fantasea" in the South Save-a-Tack region of the Namena Marine Reserve. Our cruise director Brigitte advised us to take it slow and make it a long, leisurely dive. We dropped onto a wall teeming with small triggerfish, colorful dottybacks and damsels, then cruised across sand flats and "high quality rubble" featuring decorated dartfish, flagtail blanquillos, and bluestreak gobies, admire a half-dozen ghostly cornets, pair of yellow boxfish, and huge star puffer that disappeared into the blue before doing our safety stops on a reeftop amid swarms of ubiquitous purple and orange scalefin anthias.


(photo: Keith Ellenbogen)

Not a bad way to start the day, and as we like to say: "Here on the Nai'a we see more before breakfast than most divers do all day!"


(photo: Keith Ellenbogen)

Late morning we moved back up to North Save-a-Tack to revisit a couple of our favorite sites. Some divers were dropped directly on Kansas (with its iconic Sinularia soft coral "blowing in the breeze" of the mild current), others chose to explore again the area around the Arch (where a resident whitetip reef shark lounges in the sand), and a few of us managed to get lost in "No Man's Land" in between (that we not so affectionately dub "Arkansas"). Halfway through the dive many of us heard a strange sound which we were not able to identify; when we returned to the boat we learned it was the song of a Minke whale that our skiff driver Wally saw breaching in the distance while we were all below the surface! As it turns out, this is not an uncommon occurrence in this area, so we all will be keeping our eyes and ears open in the future.

For the afternoon dive both skiffs went to "Two Thumbs Up" where there are plenty of pinnacles and definitely enough cool critters to go around. Mark Rosenstein, New England Aquarium volunteer collector and self-described "fish geek," was thrilled to score a "life fish" when he sighted his first ever leopard blenny (Exalias brevis).


Leopard Blenny, Mark's life fish (photo: Mark Rosenstein)

This event exemplifies why so many of us return again and again to this part of the world; we may have dived these sites dozens of times, but the abundance and variety of Fiji's underwater fauna ensures that there is always something new and exciting to delight us.

Our dusk dive was back on "Teton I" where divemaster Mo led us directly to the den of an octopus that was resting and not at all interested in interacting with us at the start of the dive. Later, after we had explored the rest of the site, we discovered that the octopus had moved into a more visible space where we could all admire its ability to change colors and textures instantaneously depending on its mood. This time of day marks the "changing of the guard" on the reef, when many animals take advantage of the limited light and either engage in mating and spawning, or hunt by taking advantage of those who have let their guard down. As Bailey succinctly states, "It's either pure bliss or outright death"--a compelling combination!


A decorated dartfish (photo: Mark Rosenstein)

We are still digesting dinner and discussing the highlights of our day when the night divers return to the boat; Keith Ellenbogen (who has made every dive offered on this trip so far) is raving about the "dazzling nudibranch" (Flabellina rubrolineata) he saw, while Bruce Thayer relates his close encounter with spotted unicornfish. Fifteen hours after our dive day has begun it finally comes to a close, and tomorrow we get to do it all again!

-Heidi

subscribe

Labels: dartfish, Fiji, Heidi, nudibranch, Photos, reef shark, triggerfish

Post by Mark Rosenstein.

Our first dive is on the Nasi Yalodina, a medical supply ship that sank in a storm a dozen years ago. It lies at 90 feet, the hull intact but having shed many pieces of structure. A large lionfish lurks on the deck. Soft corals cling to the railings. Several curious spadefish follow us around the wreck. Then we work our way up to shallower water where we encounter a beautiful hard coral garden hosting many butterflyfish, wrasses and damsels. The garden includes table corals ten feet wide. A hawksbill turtle rests on coral rubble. As we surface, we find a tiny juvenile spadefish hiding in floating sargassum seaweed.

The second dive site is Cat's Meow, named for Cat Holloway, wife of the owner of the Naia. It's a narrow pinnacle rising from a 70-foot rubble plain to within 15 feet of the surface. The area around the pinnacle has zoanthus polyps in many colors, as well as a littering of fungia plate corals and larger bowl corals. A dragon nudibranch crawls slowly across the rubble. Near the bottom of the pinnacle is a 20 foot long swim-through in which lurk a dozen many-spotted sweetlips. In a wide area in the middle is a Randall's shrimp goby waving its eye-spotted dorsal fin. We searched diligently, but were unable to find the ghost pipefish who is often at this site. On top of the pinnacle are many anemones each red, green, or beige and hosting clownfish. Many fusiliers, anthias, and surgeonfish swarm around the top.

After lunch, Dr. Steve Webster from the Monterey Bay Aquarium gives part 3 of his lecture series on marine invertebrates, covering cnidaria - corals and anemones.

The third dive is Cat's Reef, the larger reef structure nearby. We started over a rubble field that was covered with more zoanthus soft corals. Many small fish were around, and some huge hermit crabs. Further on we followed a wall, and saw a hundred midnight snapper passing by. A half dozen spadefish came up to us, very curious, and followed us for the rest of the dive.

Back at the Naia, the store is open! Shopping time for Naia logo-wear.

The day's fourth dive was at dusk on Humann Nature, a bommie named after Paul Humann who has written several popular fish ID books. A nice find in the rubble at the bottom was a solar boxfish. As it started to darken, hundreds of banner fish appeared. On the top many fish milled about as the daytime fish were looking for places to bed for the night, and the squirrel and cardinal fish were starting to stray from their caves.

After dinner, the Diver of the Day awards went to Shawn for having a group of spadefish follow her throughout a dive, and to Russ for his ability to be down on the reef within seconds of hitting the water.

The night dive was again on Humann Nature. Sea cucumbers were out, along with a variety of squirrel and cardinal fish. We found a couple of scorpion and lion fishes. Many different kinds of crabs and shrimp were out. The tubastrea coral had its tentacles out feeding. One black-blotched porcupine fish was hunting on the reef top.

A five-dive day is exhausting. Time for bed!

- Mark Rosenstein

(New England Aquarium member and four time expedition team member)

subscribe

Labels: butterflyfish, damsels, Fiji, lionfish, Mark, Nasi Yalodina, nudibranch, Photos, polyps, spadefish, tubastra, wrasses