MAY 18, 2009: WING BEACH
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Heading up toward 'The Canyon.' As you watch the movies, keep in mind that my camera was made when putting movie capabilities on digital still cameras was an afterthought. The movie will play pretty small. You can enlarge it, all the way up to fill your screen, but then you'll see lots of pixelated blobs moving on your screen. Oh well. Whether you watch it small or large, I hope you will enjoy. And be sure to turn your sound on. Also, I find that a fair amount of the time I have to push the triangle ("play" icon), then wait a few seconds and if it doesn't start playing, click the word "close," which appears at the top of the inset video screen, and click the "play" icon again. So, press play, give it a few seconds, and if it doesn't behave, close it and try again.
Usually, even at Wing's calmest, there is too much surge up close to the shore to allow for comfortable, safe diving in that area. However, so far this year has been the calmest I have ever seen Wing. So, on this dive we stayed at about 10 to 15 feet depth on the way up toward the Canyon, which allowed us to be mesmerized by these Barred flagtails (Kuhlia mugil).
You can get a better idea of what the Barred flagtails look like here.
Another clip next to the shore before we say goodbye to the Barred flagtails and turn toward deeper waters.
Heading for deeper waters. Notice all the divers in the background in the last segment of this clip.
Again, the movie part of my camera is very basic. As I'm sure you notice, it also does not capture the vibrant colors I can get with the stills. Here you see a Cigar wrasse (Cheilio inermis). Thanks, Rose, for pointing this fellow out to me. I'm not sure I have ever seen one before, and I certainly was surprised to find out that it's a wrasse. Most wrasses I'm familiar with spend pretty much all their time swimming. This guy is behaving more like a grouper or something. Pretty cool little fishie.
Time to drop down into the Canyon, from about 50 feet depth down to about 90.
Again, the colors lack a lot, but I hope you get some idea how cool is it to swim through this canyon. You see Mary coming down from the shoreward end to start with, then some other divers in the background as you look upward. The clip finishes with Dennis coming up from the deeper end, where the Canyon opens up and the sea bottom slants down to.....who knows where.
Here, Mary is looking at some Bubble coral, also called Grape coral (Plerogyra sinuosa). I've heard that these guys can pack a noticeable sting, but Mary touched this one and had no ill effects.
Close up of the bubble coral. It's fun to photograph. Especially when it's located where you can direct the flash behind it and get at least a little translucence.
It's ALWAYS a treat when we come upon a sea turtle. I think that this Green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) was napping. I feel kind of bad about awakening him, but I hope he didn't mind too much.
As you can see here, while he did not want to stick around, he also was not in a great hurry to get away, either.
After the Canyon, one can extend the dive by progressing to a shallow, relatively flat area, to the west and south of the entry (the Canyon is to the north). Here, we are at that flat area. Notice all the yellow fish which keep darting up, barely out of the coral, and then back into the coral in the mid-foreground. Those are Lemonpeel angelfish (Centropyge flavissima). They are pretty much constantly moving, exposing themselves for only a second or so, then hiding, and they seem to stay about 1/2 second ahead of my ability to get any reasonably acceptable still shots of them.
As you approach the Lagoon reef from the flat area, there are several of these interesting crevasses. As with the shallows in the first part of this album, this area is usually a very uncomfortable area to dive due to heavy surge. However, on this dive it was downright relaxing.
After that last photo, we exited the water, headed for town, and filled our tummies and our tanks. While everyone else stayed in town, Rose and I couldn't pass up the uncommonly still waters, so we headed back up to Wing. This video starts our second dive. First, you will see a school of Whitebar surgeonfish (Acanthurus leucopareius), which was very close to the entrance. Then, back to the same Barred flagtails you saw earlier.
Rose finds some pretty cool specimens! Here is the shell of a Cone snail. In fact, from my ID book, I believe that is a Geographic cone (Conus geographus). When it was alive, it was one of the most toxic critters known. Cone snails are hunters who kill their prey (usually fish) by shooting it with harpoons. Now, the harpoons can only travel a few millimeters, so this cunning critter also depends on the fact that it moves very slowly. Slowly enough that fish and other potentially tasty tidbits tend to ignore it until it is well within range for it's unique archery to hit the mark. The harpoons, which are lightening-fast, contain the toxin, and they subdue prey quite quickly. Unfortunately, people are attracted to this critter, and sometimes pick up live ones. They are known to be responsible for several human fatalities each year (although I have never heard of one here on Saipan).
If you watch the American Idol T.V. show, maybe you can relax and enjoy this Moorish idol video clip!
I was quite lucky to get a halfway decent shot of this guy, and I can't seem to find him in my ID book, so I'm not sure what species of crab this is. If you think you may know, please leave a comment below. He was hiding under a coral, where it was virtually impossible to focus or get adequate flash onto him. Also on this dive, Rose pointed out some colorful little crabs like I have never seen, but they were so deep in the coral that no photos turned out very good at all. So there is a challenge for the next time we dive here in non-surge conditions.
There are usually a couple of "resident eels" here. We were about to conclude that this year they had left, or died. But leave it to Rose, if there is an eel anywhere around, to find it! Giant moray (Gymnothorax javanicus).
Lionfish (Pterois volitans). You can also see a smaller Spotfin lionfish (Pterois antennata) in the background to your left.
And our second Green sea turtle for the day! This one was considerably larger than was the first one, and was awake when we found him. I always love it when I nail a photo of one of these guys so that you can clearly see the iris and pupil. Guess maybe that comes partly from my profession.....
