Around the Rock

Miguel?s Diving staff took a quick break for a beach dive at a location we consider too ugly to offer to guests. But what a great dive! Off a sand slope one huge rock pile forms a wall beginning at 18 meters down to a sand shelf at 30 meters. In an otherwise barren area, these rocks shelter an amazing collection of creatures. As we approached to check out the swirls of golden sweepers, cardinalfish, and Pink fusiliers, a white-tipped ray darted from the sand right as a Spanish mackerel made a pass to check us out. Around the corner darted a school of Silver pompano (Trachinotus blochii). Despite choppy surface conditions, visibility below was quite good. That?s why we saw them.

Rising from the sand below the rocks in deep water, a colony of strange, dark, eel-like fish nibbled at morsels passing in the light current before returning tail first to their individual burrows. They measured about 20 cm long. We suspect they are bannerfish (Acanthocepola sp.), an uncommon fish, one specie of which is only found in Indonesia. The ones we saw had distinct golden blotches on their tails, a feature not visible in photos of other bannerfish. Other rocks in the area hosted three species of morays. One rock was infested with Durban hinge-break prawns. Another rock clump was home for a family of lyre-tailed, undulating dottybacks, also not found in our fish books.