New Sightings at Favorite Sites

In this morning’s 20-meter visibility, a lone Spanish mackerel (Scomberomorus commerson) patrolled the large Japanese cargo wreck, a favorite dive site in Gorontalo. Towards the bow, a purple vase sponge one meter in diameter sat in 30 meters of water near the wall. At 20 meters atop the second wall, a bright Bluefin trevally (Caranx melampygus) circled encrusted metal beams. The real surprise was seeing a new specie of dottyback just below the encrusted anchor. With its orange dorsal fin and grey checked body, it most closely resembles an undescribed specie found in Raja Ampat and New Guinea. Nearby a school of beautiful Redspot cardinalfish (Apogon parvulus) hovered near branching Acropora. This is the first time this fish, found from eastern Indonesia to Japan, has been sighted in Gorontalo. During the safety stop, the dive master found a freckle-sized yellow nudibranch with black lateral line. A dozen meter-long Crocodile longtoms (Tylosurus crocodilus) came to look, too.

The ever-popular Traffic Jam dive site certainly lived up to its name for the second dive. With currents running - countless mackerel, fusilier, anthias, and unicornfish flashed silver, blue, yellow, and purple as schools swam below, above, and around. With so many fish, looking for macro subjects became pointless. All those fish even distracted the eye from the huge sponges characteristic of the Gorontalo walls. Visibility was 25 meters and water temperature 30-degrees Celsius.