The first two days of diving from the Pelagian are unexciting. The reef doesn’t seem to be the pristine eco system that we had heard about. By day three, we change our minds.
Healthy coral, both soft and hard, stretches for as far as I can see. The colours range from the usual tan to brown to yellow, blue, purple and orange. There is only a teeny bit of white bleach spots on the odd piece of coral.
The fish are abundant, although there are hardly any big silvery fish like barracuda. Most of the fish are smaller, like damselfish, triggerfish, anthais, and very colourful. Enormous schools of Red Toothed Tiggerfish swirl and eddy beside us. Anemone fish (clown fish) in their individually tailored anemones are happily doing their thing, until we float by, and then they are nervous and on alert.
Nudibranches, my fav, and flatworms, Mur’s fav, are spotted regularly. Some we know and some we do not.
Our fourth dive every day is a night dive. The day time fish are in holes resting. Weird and whacky creatures come out of hiding when it is dark. Two of the weirdest are the Spanish Dancer Nudibranch, a foot long fat Nudibranch, and the Anemone Crab.
Pygmy creatures are always exciting to peer at. We see a number of pygmy seahorses and a pygmy squid. The squid was so hard for me to see, I had to ask the dive master to hold his pointer next to it so I knew where to focus my camera.
The diving off the Pelagian in the Wakatobi area is some of the best diving we have done. We are now thinking we may have to come back to experience more of this wonder.