South China Sea Underwater Photo Sites (12)

It doesn’t get any better than this! The diving left us speechless. From
the untouched beauty of the bommies to the tiny, weird creatures in the muck, to
the B-17 Blackjack bomber, everything was superlative. We saw everything from a
Harlequin Ghost Pipefish to a Hammerhead. Be careful of the Panda Anemonefish–they
are quite aggressive and they bite hard!

There is even a Nautilus dive where a cage is sent down with bait and several
Nautilus are brought up for the divers to see and hold. The crew then takes the
animals back down to 200’ where they are released unharmed.

• The Ranch --So called because of its resident pygmy seahorses, at about
  20 m.



• Silver & Black --A fun dive site, where a flutemouth hovered over
  me to hide as it stalked prey. The main attraction is a sandy plain with
  hundreds of garden eels, bobbing and weaving in the current. Schools of
  triggerfish and other reef fish. At night, we saw two ocellated epaullette
  sharks, an enormous grouper, blue spotted rays, and even a dime sized octopus
  free swimming in the blue.



• Jason's Reef --Two bommies where Rhinopeus have frequently been
  spotted.



• Bunama Beach --A muck dive site, filled with fantastic creatures! A
  pair of harlequin ghost pipefish, numerous porcelain crabs, eels, seahorses,
  lots of shrimpfish flitting through the seagrass, double ended pipefish, red
  tailed pipefish, a variety of outrageously colored gobies, and much more. At
  night, we watched a color show put on by a cuttlefish, a swarming ball of
  catfish feeding, a shy little cowfish, and ghost spider crabs. Fantastic!



• Ayers Rock --Again looking for Rhinopeus, again failed. A great
  consolation was a mature blue ribbon eel as well as the black, juvenile
  version.



• Observation Point --Billed by the divemaster as a great muck diving
  site, it was a bit disappointing. Nobody could find much of anything.



• Wreck of the B-17 "Blackjack"-- Lying at 48.5 meters. It is
  almost perfectly intact, with very little encrustation to mar the beautiful
  lines of this enormous airplane. Such is the condition of this plane that the
  twin cannons in the tail turret still move in their mounts, and the belt of
  bullets is still clearly visible. Reach into the cockpit, and you'll find that
  the pilot's yoke still moves. The nose of the plane is caved in from the
  impact, and the propeller tips are bent back, but it still looks like the
  plane is ready to fly



• Kearst Reef --A blue water dive, this was a bit disappointing. We did
  three dives, and only managed to spot one very shy gray reef shark, a small
  school of barracuda, and the occasional moray.



• Deacon's Reef and Dinah's Beach --Two dive sites close to each other.
  The boat tied up at Dinah's Beach with two tenders running divers over to
  Deacon's. I'd seen Deacon's in various books I'd read before coming, and I was
  shocked to see the difference between the present day Deacon's and the
  pictures I'd seen. It seemed like 50% of the fantastic profusion of red whips,
  sea fans, and other coral formations had died off, leaving scars of dead coral
  pieces lying about. This seemed to be diving heaven! Frogfish, eels, mantis
  shrip, octopus, ocellated epaulette sharks, cuttlefish...simply everything was
  here! And the best part about Deacon's/Dinah's is the shallowness, which meant
  some marathon 100+ minute dives. All told, I was underwater nearly 7 hours
  that day!

Basilisk Point -- Basilisk was the worst sites of the trip, a wall dive
where some mantas occasionally pass by.

more info...