Oceanic Sunfish on Ice

One dark and starry night in January a local college professor was ready to quit fishing off the deep-water docks in Gorontalo City. As he reeled in his empty hook, suddenly he snagged something. After patiently bringing his catch to the surface, he discovered that his empty hook had snagged the eye socket of a huge, strange fish. It looked like a silvery, flattened disk with long upper and lower fins but no tail. It measured two meters long! A remora stubbornly stuck to the strange fish’s face. The catch was taken to Gorontalo Provincial Fisheries Department. No one had ever seen such a creature, so they decided to preserve it in a local cold storage facility.

Last week during the Coral Preservation Campaign, local fishermen told Miguel’s Diving staff about the strange catch. After seeing its picture in the Fisheries Department office, we immediately realized it was an Oceanic sunfish (Mola mola). Seen in the oceans since the time of ancient Troy, its Latin name means millstone, since it looks like the flat round stone used for grinding grain into flour. The Oceanic sunfish is the largest bony fish in the ocean, measuring up to three meters and weighing up to two tons. It swims by flapping its long dorsal and ventral fins from side to side. Although pelagic, it is often near the surface. It is most often observed in the wild while floating motionless on its side, basking in the sun.

Its huge surface area is an ecosystem for thousands of parasites. Mola molas will come close to coral reefs for cleaning by tropical fish, including bannerfish. Once observers saw a huge sunfish floating on the surface, so that seagulls could pick it clean. The huge fish then flipped over, giving the gulls its other cheek. Mola molas mainly feed on jellyfish and plankton but can blow water to search for food along the substrate. Its hide is up to 15 centimeters thick! Causes of its eventual death are parasites, nets, and great white sharks. It is found in all oceans both tropical and temperate. One of the best places in the world to see this unusual fish is off Nusa Penida in Bali during the summer months. Click this link for great photos of this swimming millstone.

Wonders of the North Coast

Gorontalo’s northern coastline marks the southern boundary of the Sulawesi Sea. This week Miguel’s Diving staff took a day for diving around one of the offshore islands about three hours from Gorontalo City. The long drive was worth sightings of creatures we have not seen in Tomini Bay, where we offer diving along Gorontalo’s southern shore. This includes the Tawny nurse shark (Nebrius ferrugineus) we found resting on the sand bottom. Nearby several patches of Black Garden eels (Heteroconger perissodon) swayed hypnotically. This eel is known only from Indonesia and the Philippines. We have only found one small colony in our Tomini Bay sites. On a clump of coral a Crocodile fish (Cymbacephalus beauforti) lay motionless not far from a Hawksbill sea turtle. Doublebanded soapfish (Diploprion bifasciatum) glowed in stylish yellow. In addition to this soapfish, Anchor coral (Euphyllia ancora) and Grape cluster colonial tunicates (Oxyxorynia fascicularis) are not present at our regular dive sites.

In midwater, countless fairy wrasse dashed about searching for current-borne tidbits. Possibly Bluesided fairy wrasse (Cirrhilabrus cyanopleura), these half blue fish are not found in Tomini Bay where our endemic Orangeback wrasse dominates. While ascending after a safety stop, we were surrounded by millions of minnows swimming frantically to elude predators.

The sea grass beds and sand slope were just as fascinating as the coral and shallow sand channel. A pair of Flying gurnards (Dactyloptena orientalis) spread their blue-edged fins in flight. A Cockatoo leaf fish (Ablabys taenianotus) bobbed in perfect imitation of a nearby mangrove leaf. Intricately coiffured, a Rockmover wrasse (Novaculichthys taeniourus) turned over rubble under the wary gaze of an octopus in its den. Several commensal shrimp species that we have never seen bear need for a closer inspection – with a camera! One compact, deep red anemone sheltered a number of purple-spotted shrimp. Although we found two colonies of Pinkeye gobies ( Bryaninops natans), most of the unique species we promote in Tomini Bay were not available around this island in the Sulawesi Sea.

Miguel's Diving Leads in Coral Preservation Campaign

In conjunction with World Environment Day, Miguel?s Diving is sponsoring a public awareness campaign on coral reef preservation. The target audience is fishermen whose livelihood depends on a healthy marine environment. The biggest threat is the practice of making fertilizer bombs to blast fish. Although this results in a huge catch initially, many fish and marine life unsuitable for market die as well. Live coral formations are ruined. This loss of habitat has had dramatic, negative impact on fish catches elsewhere. Fortunately, along the coastline where Miguel?s Diving bring divers, damage is confined only to certain places with many locations untouched.

Our emphasis is the need for local fishermen to guard their own reefs. Along this coastline of Gorontalo, those who fish with bombs are no longer locals but outsiders. As a direct result of this campaign in past years, local fishermen have rowed out to meet outsiders who have entered the area to blast fish. They deliver the message that blast fishing is not allowed in this area designated for marine tourism. They also mention that the governor likes to dive here. As a result, the intruders quickly leave without throwing their bombs. This is a clear victory for local fishermen and their families.

Miguel?s Diving visited five villages this week accompanied by representatives from the Provincial Fisheries Department and law enforcement. Our part of the campaign involves a great flip chart on marine environments courtesy of North Sulawesi?s Bunaken Marine Park, plus a house-of-cards demonstration on the effects of bombing, and samples of different kinds of coral where the coral polyp skeleton is clear. We also leave behind several cartoon, color posters telling the story of a coral reef that is destroyed by bombing. The caption in Indonesian and Gorontalo languages reads, ?Destroying coral reefs destroys the livelihood of fishermen. Don?t let it happen here!?

Blue Chip Plankton

An unpredictable but annual visitor to Gorontalo is what we affectionately call the Blue chip plankton. Seen only in the first couple meters of the water column, this marine creature looks like a chip of iridescent blue paint. It measures about five millimeters. If you approach one with your finger, it will swim away a bit before extinguishing its color and disappearing into transparency.

Tiny Terrors

Unlike other anemone dwellers, Saddleback clownfish (Amphiprion polymnus) are extremely territorial. The larger fish in a colony will aggressively chase divers away. In fact, they will come right up to a diver?s mask. The threatening chomping noise they make with their jaws is quite audible. They prefer living in association with the carpet-like Haddon?s anemone (Stichodactyla haddoni). In Gorontalo these tiny terrors are found only at the Alleyways dive site on the sand bank leading to the reef. Here they are quite plentiful and excess populations have moved to adjacent rocks since all the anemones are full. The population boom shows no sign of abating. During a beach dive last weekend, Miguel?s Diving staff spied two large ones laying eggs.

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.

Gorontalo Exclusive: White Foxtail Colonial Tunicates

Gorontalo is close to Sulawesi diving hot spots of Bunaken Marine Park, Lembeh, and the Togian (Togean) Islands. However, we are often finding things unknown to those familiar with diving in these adjacent locations. One striking example is what Phuket?s dive guru calls White foxtails after a recent visit. These are colonial tunicates whose translucent white members grow from a central basal stalk. These foxtails are found in Gorontalo hanging from sheltered overhangs and deep pinnacles where they are protected from the current. Some colonies are almost a meter in length.

Tunicates are marine animals that have an incurrent and an excurrent siphon for pulling in food and releasing waste. Tunicates are also called ascidians or sea squirts. Most of our marine biologist buddies had never seen these until diving here. You are only likely to see these beautiful foxtails by diving in Gorontalo, Sulawesi?s newest location for finding unusual marine life.