Friday 23 March 2012

Pom Pom Island


Date: 23 Mar 2012 – 27 Mar 2012
Location: Pulau Pom Pom, Sabah
Camera: Canon G10 + Canon Casing
Strobe: Fantasea Single Nano Strobe Set
Filter: NIL
Post editing: PS CS3
No. of dives: 13


<- that's me with a giant frogfish !
common lionfish


Pom Pom Island is around 45 minutes by boat from Semporna; it has rich tropical vegetation and is surrounded by absolutely stunning white sand and the turquoise waters of the Celebes Sea.

It is on part of this beautiful island that "Pom Pom Island Resort" finds it home.

Pom Pom Island Resort is a new and exclusive resort located on Celebes Sea (Latitude 04˚36' , Longitude 118˚52')


whip coral shrimp


My reason to go there:
I miss diving a lot, haven't been diving for > 1 year .... and would love to dive this region of Pom Pom, Mataking, Timba-timba, Pandanan, Bohe Dulang, etc


needle cuttlefish/sepia aculeata

Thoughts:
- Visibility was really good ranging from 15m to 25m, depending of the dive sites
- Loads of frogfish and loads of unusual nudibranches(which is my FAV !!!)
- Coral reefs have been badly bombed, it is a shame. However there are a few dive sites with some corals.
- But these dead corals are perfect hiding place for a wide array of cools stuffs, frogfish, needle cuttlefish, stonefish, scorpionfish, mandarin fish, nudibranches, etc
- The dive operator was nice, I enjoy diving with them
- Very happy to see some new nudibranches like ..marionia sp., discodoris boholiensis, dolabella auricularia, pleurobranchus forskalii, phidiana indica
- Extremely happy to see many frogfishes and swim with 2
- Water temperature 26-27c, with my hood on, no prob.
- Great dive gang, although they were all strangers to me
- I wish I had more time at Mataking Jetty
- I wish I could see that really cool nudibranch(notodoris serenae) Zul saw during the morning house reef dive, and also that ceratosoma, and the 3 nembrothas he saw(milleri, cristata & kurbayana)
- Special thanks to Kit Choong for arranging this trip for us ....


phidiana indica

rock shrimp/leander plumosus

2 whip coral gobies

2 cleaner wrasse cleaning a batfish

An emperor shrimp hiding at the bottom of a leopard sea cucumber

starfish on feather star

chromodoris willani

crocodile fish

coriocella nigra - a snail

a free swimming giant frog fish ... it is rare to see them swim

red giant frogfish clinging on to red sponges

octopus hunting at night

phyllidia ocellata

A harlequin crab at the belly of a leopard seacucumber


giant frogfish

sole

a juvenile lobster

decorative crab

marionia sp.

stone fish

whip coral shrimp

warty frogfish

dolabella auricularia

coral close-up

pleurobranchus forskalii

2 juvenile stone fishes

hypselodoris bullockii 

chromodoris reticulata

nembrotha lineolata

chromodoris magnifica

hypselodoris bullockii

phyllidiella pustulosa

chromodoris kuniei

2 discodoris boholiensis

SLIDESHOW




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