Black Snapper in Bunaken
Black snapper are found in schools all around Bunaken’s walls. They are grey in colour with darker shades near the tail and fins. Other names for them are the black beauty snapper and the newspaper snapper. They are easily confused with a midnight snapper but these ones have a yellow eye. The juveniles have a completely different shape than their parents and are usually found hiding in the larger areas of soft coral. We are lucky to be diving almost every day so we get to see them develop from juveniles and transfer into ‘teenagers’ and eventually to adults.
These fish can grow up to 60cm long but most that we see here are 30-40cm. We see the adult fish a lot during the day but they are more active during night time when they mainly feed on fish, crustaceans and cephalopods. The juveniles will hide more at night time but we do see them dancing around near the soft coral during the day! They are really interesting looking fish!
This week we have had beautiful sunshine and flat seas with amazing visibility at Two Fish Bunaken Resort! Uwe has left to go to Two Fish Lembeh Resort and enjoy some muck diving before heading to the Philippines on the new direct flight from Manado. The new flight path makes country hopping through South East Asia very easy!
Don and Sri have been diving in Lembeh and have now transferred over to us for some amazing wall dives!! Their favourite so far has been Lekuan Dua which is one of our steepest walls. It has so many fish and beautiful corals so it is perfect for snorkelling as well! Matt and Shaun joined us for a few days of diving and they also really enjoyed all the diversity Bunaken has to offer.
Thomas has been very busy for a few days while he has been doing his Emergency First Response Course and PADI Rescue Course. These courses teach you how to react and respond to emergencies as well as in water rescues. The PADI Rescue Course is a very rewarding course but can be exhausting at times as it is quite physical! Today Thomas has been practising some scenarios about missing divers and unresponsive divers! He was very quick to respond and did a great job getting his buddy (pretending to be unresponsive) back to the boat and up the ladder!
It has been a great week here on Bunaken with so much to see underwater. We have seen plenty of sharks, new nudibranchs, frogfish and many black snapper, midnight snapper and giant trevally!
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