Well, here I am again, after a very long hiatus from blogging.
Last week I posted a link to a piece I wrote about a trip to the Philippines, which was just published in Scuba Diving Magazine.
I had to pretty ruthlessly curate the many images I captured on the trip, to pare it down to 20 or so underwater shots that I thought fairly represented the highlights of the diving we did. I have many more that I think (hope) are worthy of sharing, and I thought I would start with this, a Nembrotha kurbayana nudibranch.
These green and orange nudibranchs are quite common in the tropical Pacific, and are not very difficult to spot on the reef – the bright orange margins on the rhinosphores (horns) and gills are very distinctive, with the added bonus that these nudibranchs are quite large – typically two to three inches long.
I had some time with this nudibranch as it crawled across the reef, and was fortunate at one point to be able to get a bit below it so I could shoot up into its face. The result is this sort of otherworldly perspective of the thing…
Nudibranchs use their ‘horns’ (rhinosphores) for smelling – food sources, and other nudibranchs with which to mate. They are hermaphrodites, so have both male and female sex organs.
About Judy G Diver
Born and raised on the west coast of Canada, I have always felt a strong connection to the sea. But for many years, I stayed on the surface, afraid of what lurked down deep. When I was in my early 30's, with three young children (aka the P's), my husband (aka Mr G) signed us up for a SCUBA certification course, as a surprise. Although I had my fears, my stubbornness prevailed, and somehow I made it through four murky, frigid, cold water dives in Vancouver to successfully pass the course. Soon after we went diving off the west coast of Mexico, in the Sea of Cortez, where my eyes were opened to the beauty and other-worldliness of the life down under.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
I currently have well over 2000 dives under the belt, and I have been fortunate to travel and dive in Indonesia, Thailand, Australia, Fiji, Palau, Philippines, Galapagos, Costa Rica, Hawaii, California, Egypt, Mexico, several islands in the Caribbean, and here in British Columbia.
In addition to this blog and my personal website (Awoosh.com/Directory), which is linked at the top of the blog, my stuff has been published in a variety of magazines and websites, including a regular monthly feature for Scubadiving Magazine for several years. All links to this work can be found in this blog.
