This week in Lembongan… Big fish, round fish, long fish, thin fish, many fish, small fish, ugly fish, colourful fish and two or more fish… We’ve seen it all. But on one of our last safety stops at SD on the north coast of Nusa Penida a Humphead Wrasse decided to hang out with the divers for most of the three minutes.

These majestic fish, also called Napoleon Wrasse after the French Emperor, always make quite an impression on the divers due to their size, the impressive hump on their forehead and their big lips. The males of the species can get over two meters long while the females tend to be a little smaller, at around one meter in length. Humphead Wrasses are Protogynous hermaphrodites, which means that they are born female and at one point during their life some of them change to being male. In this species that happens around the age of nine. The maximum age that they can reach is thought to be from 32 to 50 years. Which just shows again how little is known about these fish, just like so many other inhabitants of our oceans.

Gannon who previously dived in Lombok with us, has now moved over to us and is hoping to take many good pictures of the various small critters our dive sites have to offer. Gannon and Tom (a PADI Divemaster currently diving with us) enjoyed the nice drifts along the beautiful reefs of Nusa Penida. Due to the tides the currents have been a bit stronger than normal but this always brings in lots of fish.

We have seen big schools of fusilier, many drummerfish, the ever present giant and bluefin trevally and even some molas have made an appearance. But of course there were also smaller creatures around like banded cleaner shrimp, banded sea snake, orangutan crab, boxer crab and many moray eels.