Harlequin Shrimp at Home
Imagine our delight when we decided to explore the site directly in front of our dive shop for a night dive and we discovered two large harlequin shrimp! A first for Jenny, Mel and Marcus and only a second-ever sighting for Komang, we marveled at these gorgeous critters calling our house reef “home”. These colourful and elusive shrimps are typically found in pairs as they mate for life and often stay in one territory for extended periods of time. (We hope so, as we will continue to enjoy visiting them for as long as they are there!) They also work together in pairs to hunt starfish, flipping the sea star onto its back and then eating it. If hungry, they may also dine on sea urchins, but they almost exclusively feed on starfish, including the reef destructive crown-of-thorns starfish! Harlequin shrimp are small, only reaching about five centimeters in length, and the female is slightly larger than the male.
New Open Water Diver Veronica
We welcomed Veronica this week for her PADI Open Water Course with instructor Jenny. Veronica had previously done a few DSDs so she really excelled throughout the training. It was so much fun that she signed up for a couple of fun dives and her Advanced Open Water Course as well! She learned how to fill out her logbook from Divemaster trainee Mel and we love that the two of them write details about the dives and draw photos! Can you believe Veronica saw a blue-ringed octopus on her final dive of the Open Water Course?!?
A lovely family from Sweden joined us for their first open water dive after they completed their pool session with our team in Amed. The conditions in Amed, unfortunately, weren’t good enough to complete the open water dive so we took them out to a dive site off Gili Meno where they saw turtles, moray eels, clownfish and more! Tess (age 14) and Robin (age 12) loved it so much that they have decided they want to become dive instructors!
Our regular weekly beach cleanup in Gili Air
Thursday afternoon we did another beach cleanup. With the rain comes more rubbish washing up on our shores, so we thought it would be a good idea to get out there and collect as much as we could. Between the eight of us, we managed to fill up our rice sacks in no time!
Marcus and Mel finished their PADI Divemaster training with us this week and we are so sad to see them go. They have been such a pleasure to have around the dive shop and to go diving with. Mel also completed her PADI Night Diver Specialty with instructor Jenny, qualifying her for the Master Scuba Diver certification! Way to go, Mel! We celebrated their accomplishment with their snorkel tests on Friday evening and were joined by student Veronica and a couple of Marcus’ friends from Sweden and we really hope to welcome both Mel and Marcus back for a future IDC (Instructor Development Course).
Do you want to join us at Two Fish Divers Gili Air? Fill in the form below and we will get right back to you!
