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tiny Cleaner Wrasse
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date: 13/2/2009
Author:Nick Brennan
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Weather: Overcast | Air Temp: 26.5°C | Wind: SE 20/25 knots | Water Temp: 27°C | Water Visibility: ~10 m | Sea State: Chop
The divers today had a spectacular time, with staff describing it as “Probably the best dive their lives!” The reason for these outlandish claims was because of a visit by a giant hammerhead shark. It came up to the groups and kept swimming in and out of the visibility for about 10 minutes; an extremely rare treat. Everybody said they were a little bit scared at first but thought the experience was second to none. Once back got on the boat guests faces beaming, they could hardly believe what they had seen!
On the glass bottom boats guests learnt about the wrasse family and were astonished to hear the diversity of fish in this group from the very large Maori Wrasse to the tiny Cleaner Wrasse. After learning of the cleaner wrasse guests were determined to see a cleaning station in action. After the boat one couple told staff they had observed some coral trout actually queuing up like a carwash to get serviced by the cleaner wrasse creating a very funny scene.
In the afternoon some guests came along to the Island Discovery tour to get a grounding of some of the amazing life here on Lady Elliot. They were fascinated by the history of the Island especially the fact that no white capped Noddy’s were recorded in 1971. The addition of suitable nesting vegetation to the island resulted in the rapid colonization of the Island through the 1980’s to over 9000 nesting pairs. Guests could not imagine what the Island might be like without them.
At fish feeding the guests loved the feeling of the fish swishing about their feet. Our regular diamond scale mullet arrived at the end of the feeding session and rushed right in opening it’s mouth as wide as possible hoping some food would find its way in. We told him to be on time tomorrow and he might get some more food.
Guests had a relaxing afternoon in the education centre watching some documentary’s from our dvd library. It was a good way to recharge the batteries while the rain was blowing over. After dinner guests enjoyed some hilarious games of Reef Bingo before ‘hitting the hay’ after a big day of discovery.
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Cleaning Station - Jess Howard
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