So what exactly is a boxfish?

Besides being the cuties fish ever, the boxfish are small fish that mainly swim in the shallow areas of the warmer parts of the world’s oceans, like coral reefs. They spend their lives passively pruning algae and small invertebrates like crustaceans, worms, and sponges off rocks and coral with their tiny, cute mouths. Their body is rigid with hexagonal bony plates fused together to form a hard shell that encircles their interior, “real” skeletal framework. It has as well rounded corners that makes the animal distinctly rectangular in overall shape. Their shell is so amazing that it has been used as a bionic inspiration for automobile design!

How cool is that?!

Also this week, everybody has been looking deeply into the blue, trying to find molas, and many did! Crystal Bay and the Buyuk (on the north coast) were our favorite spots this week and we were lucky enough to see quite a few. Karoline even experienced a face to face with a one of this strange amazing creatures, while trying to show a nudibranch to her Advanced Open Water student Jordan at Crystal Bay.

Sometimes it feels like mantas just like playing with you! The manta rays seemed to be hiding during our last dive at Manta Bay, they only decide to show up and cruise around, when everybody was on their safety stop. As you can imagine we stayed longer than the casual three minutes to make sure we all fully enjoyed the encounter. Some students were really lucky this week with having dives with Manta AND Molas, just on their courses!