Nightdiving again a highlight at Mnemba!

On the 2^nd of August we did a night dive at Kichouani, our preferred night dive site, only a few minutes boat ride, at the South-West of Mnemba atoll. The dive started exciting with plenty of ‘geometric eels' and ‘yellow margin moray eels' all on their nocturnal hunting spree around "Groupers Rock", a reference coral patch that was given this name in the past. More then twenty big ‘common lionfish' were spreading their wing-like fins.

A few minutes later into the dive, I saw a Goddefroy's sea cucumber, a segmented 1,5 meter long creature with feather-like tentacles in the front crawling on the bottom. Not so rare, but what caught my attention in the beam of the diving torch was the little ‘Emperor partner shrimp', ‘Periclemenes imperator', that was playing around on the tentacles of the sea cucumber. It was the first time I've ever seen one of those shrimps on this species of sea cucumber and lucky enough I had my camera with me to take some pictures! Later on in the dive, we also saw two ‘spotfin lionfish' engaged in a territorial fight. Both threatening each other with wide open mile and wide spread fins.

Tons of excitement for a night dive!!

Posted: &BEYOND Mnemba Island by Jan Christiaens, Date: 8 August 2007

 
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