Destin April 9 -10th dive report

[Puffer Fish]

Interesting weekend..conditions that were supposed to be good on Sat ended up foggy the whole day and Sunday had a pretty good wind from the east blowing.

Did the triple ledges (ok, but not great)..then the main stack of the rubble, and Sunday did Anna's reef with the lovely and talented Miss Louse..

I had decided to shoot macro... ok and some fish, but in a much more eatable way.... and

As always, one had to kick all the nudi's out of the way:

will not post all the others I captured..and there were the frog fish (getting tired of them)

But the week before, we had seen a strange newcomer to the area, and my hope was to find one and get pictures of it....

And here are a couple of them:

This is a huge nudi...most were around hand size...saw them the week before on the liberty ship, and labor day rock...and now at triple ledges and the rubble pile.

It is a Dendrodoris Warta, a rather rare (up until now) animal which has only been seen in a couple of locations (none near here). They eat sponges. Ugly, but cool... Our version here is colored unlike any of the known samples...

While going over the week before images, I had misses this guy:

another visitor I have not seen before.

I like tube anemones, and there were several of this species next to the Miss Louse:

The rest was just taking pictures of stuff I already have images of...

Note: I only take images of dart fish because they are so hard to get close to...sort of a skill test...

I like this next one because just as I was going to take the picture, two divers came up behind him....

This is a crab around 1 inch is size, and if you mess with it, it does what every other crab does, threaten you with it's huge claws..

Met several really nice people, had fun diving... all around good weekend.

 

[sontek]

Great photos as always

 

[paulwall]

Great photos. Especially coming from the future, and all.

 

[Puffer Fish]

Great photos. Especially coming from the future, and all.

Not the best with dates.. hey, I got the right month at least.

Thanks.

 

[tjdavis]

Had fun diving with you on Sunday and you were really interesting to talk with on the boat. Thanks for posting the pictures. They look great.

 

[Puffer Fish]

Glad you had fun and welcome to scubaboard.

 

[GLENFWB]

Jim,

You have been exposed. Everyone knows there aren't that many nudi's in Destin! I hear rumors that some people who have been diving for years in Destin have yet to see one. And you claim to find a Dendrodoris Warta....in Destin!! Who in the world knows what that is! To top it off you post a picture of a red tube anenome that you "claim" was taken on the Miss Louise. The Miss Louise only has herds of bait fish...and one lone Barracuda on patrol.

You obviously have posted pictures taken in other places. The quality of the pictures, variety of species clearly rule out Destin. Everyone knows the diving in Destin is boring. Just be honest and post the pictures of the barren brdige rubble...you know you will feel better when you come clean.

(Now before anyone flames me...understand this was typed with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek! Yes....this message is revealing my own inability to take any decent pictures in my own back yard!)

 

[Puffer Fish]

Glen, Your are correct.. for there to be all kinds of nudibranchs, they would have to be mating like crazy...

Which we all know they don't do.

While on the subject of things we don't have here, we don't have jaw fish:

and we sure don't have pipe fish:

Or these:

To be honest, the oil spill killed most of the shrimp (the cleaner ones I like to take pictures of), but the oil + surfactant made a lovely fertilizer that algae grew on, and florida regal sea goddesses eat algae... so we have a huge population of nudi's right now. I usually take pictures of the first 5 I see on a dive and then skip them after that...ok, knowing how to see them helps.

The Miss louse shot.. well I was taking pictures of the Bat fish, when I saw them...so there.

Jim,

You have been exposed. Everyone knows there aren't that many nudi's in Destin! I hear rumors that some people who have been diving for years in Destin have yet to see one. And you claim to find a Dendrodoris Warta....in Destin!! Who in the world knows what that is! To top it off you post a picture of a red tube anenome that you "claim" was taken on the Miss Louise. The Miss Louise only has herds of bait fish...and one lone Barracuda on patrol.

You obviously have posted pictures taken in other places. The quality of the pictures, variety of species clearly rule out Destin. Everyone knows the diving in Destin is boring. Just be honest and post the pictures of the barren brdige rubble...you know you will feel better when you come clean.

(Now before anyone flames me...understand this was typed with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek! Yes....this message is revealing my own inability to take any decent pictures in my own back yard!)