RebreatherDave

What happened to that poor spotted bass?! Looks like a propeller hit the poor thing....

Not to be confused with the much smaller false moorish idol, heniochus acuminatis

Wow, that streaming HD clip of the chick on the guitar was awesome. Incredible guitar playing too. Seems Zudeo is to download clips, not stream them.....

Ah, I graduated with honors from a police academy in Los Angeles 25 years or so ago, it was a kind where one could put themselves through to make themselves more eligable for hire during an era where you needed to make yourself as hire friendly as possible if you made the mistake of being born with male genitalia and being caucasian and heteosexual. But back then it was 3 strikes and your out, so since I refused to dismember myself or renounce my race or preference, it was off to other pastures. It would have been easy to get hired if I had been born a vertically challenged, handicapable differently sighted cross dressing transgendered lesbian hermaphrodite of color who had been raped on the hood of a UFO by a BigFoot (or for our Spanish speaking friends, El Chupcabra). I had an absolute blast in that academy though...... Working for a city has its advantages where they often let one acrue lots of vacation time and do some horse trading by being able to use unused sick days. Raja Ampat is on my long list after Lembeh and Gangga in Sulawesi. I hear Raja Ampat rocks with both macro and crystal clear water.

Eric, That is just like me going all excited after a dive with some fellow rebreather types in shallow eel grass with us seeing razorfish...they thought the macro was boring and I was all amped.... Seeing one of those in an urchin and getting to video it would similarly be a highlight for me... Why divers wouldn't find such cool is beyond me....funny though, while they're thinking we don't get it, we think they don't get it....lol

No sweat...nice website by the way...the white text overwrites itself alot when viewed in Apple's Safari browser..... I was envious you've been able to travel to all those places....PNG is on my list......but I'll go to The Lembeh Straights first....

Here is the spiders lethal variant, called fascia bursterii

Its psilogobius mainlandi, endemic to Hawaii

Then you should have one of these......

See, it wasn't a lame question after all!

I would agree that the photos looked like low resolution with the color slightly muted. I don't think it was the camera or the photgraphy, as that Canon is one smokin camera. Photoshop has a save image feature that optimizes images for web rendering.... I really liked how you had lots of general images other than just underwater stuff so we could get a feel for the overall experience of diving at that place. Great job.

Herb Your photos really rocked. You seem to be into the macro cirtters too..... One of the things I envy about still shooters is you don't need to keep yourself as still as us videographers do.... Those shrimp on the sea fans/whip coral, there is just no way I could get a whip coral to stay perfectly still in a current....... On another subject, rumor has it that the people at Wakatobi are realy militant about not touching anything underwater.....to do macro of animals, for me that is just not possible, I must come to rest on my knees of I can find a sandy area to stablize myself to minimize movment.... What is your take on their alleged policy?

I didn't hear about Anilao till after I left Atlantis. In hindsight, I wonder why they don't do the day trips to that island off Anilao alternately called Tingloy or Maricaban Island as opposed to Verde Island. They never said anything about Anilao.....but rumor has it I must dive Basura/Bahura.... If Anilao has Coleman shrimp, what more else does one really need?! lol I wonder if there is a dive resort on Tingloy/Maricaban Island, or if not, if La Laguna has day trips to Anilao.....

Funny when I was divbing with Atlantis and a group of fellow rebreather types our 1st dive was in the eel grass where you mentioned. I didn't take my videocam down as I hadn't even got it wet yet in the pool......we ended up seeing half a dozen razorfish and some otehr small cool critters. Everyone in our group compliained that the dive in the eel grass sucked.....because they didn't see any big fish/stuff apparently...i was all gushing about the razorfish and how it was amazxing what weird stuff hides out in the eel grass, and they all thought I was whacked out. I went their again 2 months later and I was all: Can we do a dive in the eel grass?! But alas, in spite of my best attempts, I still haven't run into any flambouyant cuttlefish...... I might dive with La Laguna if they can arrange day trips to Anilao area for macro or maybe I can find a resort on the Island just off the tip of Anilao....what is that, Tingloy Island?

I could never afford to take off from working in my own biz for a month! Damn, you're lucky!