Sand Dive

During off season Miguel?s Diving staff get a little stir crazy and try to find ways to get a dive in. However, ocean conditions are capricious, often worsening dramatically in the course of only an hour or two. Such was the case last week when seas were clear and calm early in the morning. However, when we arrived at a site with our dive gear, surf pounding the reef and rocks had stirred up the sand. Thinking that we would swim underneath the murky water, we tried to approach from below. However, at 18 meters visibility was still less than one meter and much worse at shallower depths. So, we opted to dive a sheltered sand bank where visibility approached a stunning three meters. Underwater we could hear the surge churning the rocks.

Despite these horrible conditions, we had a great time searching the sand. We found various snails eating away at a fish head. A couple of seahorses were drifting swiftly with the swell. In addition to a damsel and a sand goby that we had never seen before, we saw the nostrils, nose, and eyes of two different snake eels. One was definitely a Napolean snake eel (Ophichthys bonaparti). These spectacularly patterned eels bury themselves in the sand, waiting for prey. Gorontalo is gaining a much-deserved reputation as the place to go for rare marine life.