Night Time Is The Right Time

So what's something we haven't done for a good little while now ? You've guessed it, a night dive. It was time to rectify that little oversight with a trip up to the North West in the late afternoon to get a pre and post sunset dive in and see what we can see.

Surprisingly enough, despite the late hour of arrival, the site was still jumping, with divers getting in and out of the water which was most odd for the hour. But we got in and headed for our private little secluded spot on the main wall. Which happened to be crawling with turtles as it happens, along with their escorts of french and queen angelfish. Magnificent.

Feeding frenzy

Whilst we were out there, we were nearly run over by a rampaging herd of jacks. Inconsiderate. No indication, no right of way, nothing. Could have been nasty. And I didn't even get their license plate number!

Hooligans!!

There was a slight Northerly current and the viz was sitting at around 18 - 20 metres but nothing out of the ordinary as far as the dive was concerned, just lots of lovely scenery and marine life to enjoy. Along with our faithful minions as always, of course.

We had a good old time with our fishy friends but with our NDL fast approaching, it was time say goodbye to the deep and switch lenses for some night time action after a short interlude.

Straight away we were immediately greeted with a lovely little gaudy clown crab out in the open and scuttling his merry way across the hard pan with an added bonus of an elysia crispata right next door to him. Maybe there was some sort of assignation going on, we'll never know the truth........

We did a scour along the top of the mini wall and off to the left where the last reported sighting of our seahorse friend was made, but alas it was all for naught.

Still, there was more than enough little critters to keep me more than happy. And when I say little, I really do mean little. A tiny juvenile decorator crab and then another miniscule crab hidden in a tiny crack in a coral head, I have no idea what it may be as it's way too small for me to identify but if anyone out there would like to contribute, please let me know. I'd hazard a guess at maybe a sand dollar crab maybe?

After a good long scour along the shallows, the  highlight of the evening made an appearance in the forms of a longhorn nudi quickly followed by a fringeback nudi in rapid succession which was a nice double whammy to round off the end of the dive before we had to start heading back to shore.

Just before the getting out there was time just to grab a couple of quick shots of a juvenile octopus and a a juvenile flamingo tongue cowrie just for good measure. Another excellent night dive and definitely worth having some patience and time to check for the little stuff. Seek and ye shall find!

P.S. Peacock flounder right underneath the ladder!