Festival
The weather was great today,
and the shallows were a crystal clear blue,
or something like that (haha)
We went to Kitakoura,
and Nagate
had lots of fish and was really fun.
Huge schools of aji and chagara. Juveniles of all kinds of fish, like kawahagi and mejina, were schooling together.
There were lots of nudibranchs too: sumizome mino umiushi were bunched up into a ball,
a sagamiiro umiushi suddenly popped out, and so on...
Above all,
the kiiro umikocho in the photo were everywhere; it was like a festival. (Maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration...)
Anyway, there were a lot of them.
It was bright and clear underwater, so the yellow really stood out.
The chagara had nice colors too; it was a colorful sea you only get at this time of year.
Akaiwa has lots of schools too.
On top of that, there were few people today and we were the first to arrive at Akaiwa, so the kobudai (Asian sheepshead wrasse), tired of waiting,
came over to us on its own, looking like it wanted some attention.
It showed a charm it doesn't usually show, and we got to see a different side of it.
That's
Benkei for you:
he's got plenty of tricks up his sleeve.
Here's the sea report.
Dive date: July 30 (Wednesday)
Dive sites: Kitakoura (Nagate and Akaiwa)
Weather: Sunny
Wave height: 0.5 m
Current: Slight
Underwater temp: 20 to 24°C
Marine life seen: kobudai, a school of aji (horse mackerel), schools of juvenile chagara (a goby), a school of damselfish, a school of kawahagi (threadsail filefish), striped beakfish (ishidai), Japanese rockfish (mebaru), amimehagi (a pygmy filefish), kijihata (red spotted grouper), largescale blackfish (mejina), kitsune mebaru (a rockfish, juveniles and adults), kyusen and honbera (wrasses), haokoze (a waspfish), sagamiiro umiushi, kiiro umikocho, sumizome mino umiushi, akaboshiumiushi, shiroumiushi and aoumiushi (sea slugs), golden cuttlefish (kouika), and more
