Dennis the friendly Dugong

Knowing there is something to fotograph but not being able to find it sort of frustrating, especially when underwater and being limited by an annoying but finite thing as an air supply.

Try imagining an area as large as a couple of football fields of underwater seagrass and an underwater visibility of about 20 meters/60 feet and you'll understand it's not easy to find a specific living animal, even it has the size of about two human beings.

The "thing" I am talking about is "Dennis", the famous resident seacow (or Dugong, it's one of the three members of the Manatee family) of the Abu Dabbab bay near Port Ghalib in the Marsa Alam region of Egypt.

Seeing these pictures you've probably guessed we found it but it took us two full-hour dives to actually spot it. Sure, we did come across plenty of huge and approacheable Turtles and a couple of large Stingrays but imagine being a the last stage of your dive (it's that limited air supply) and spotting an enormous dustcloud underwater, the number one Dugong signature... but no Dennis to match it.

Turned out it was right above us and while we were getting highly frustrated not seeing it, he was just getting a breath of fresh air. Our paths finally crossed when we decided to go up and finish the dive while he was going down to continue vacuuming the seafloor.

We squeezed a few last minutes at our ample air supply... enjoy the results!

Images taken with a Canon Eos 20D, 15mm f2.8 fisheye and an UK-Germany Housing

cool! i would love to see a dugong..

lucky lucky you! I was in Shagra twice, spent 4-5 dives in Abu Dabbab but did not find the guy. Maybe if I look more carefully I can spot the small inflator on it

nice pictures, specially the first one, congrats.

zook

The first one was everybody's favorite I think. I was so happy when I got that shot right. It was cool having some newly-met Portugese friends helping out. Als you can see me taking the picture in his video, really funny!

Out of 50+ divers we were the only three able to find it and that almost didn't happen either... All of us came out with tanks with less than 30bars... but, we'd already done our safetystops and were in 6 meter/18 feet of water.

I like the first one the best and the last one, but they're all very nice. Great job

I now see that I maybe was a little too enthuastic with the red in the last one.

They really are weired creatures, great photos, especially the first one.

I love Dennis!!!

Why is he named Dennis, do you know?

Very nice photos, I've never seen a dugong so you are very lucky. It seems as if they are just as captivating as our beloved manatee - thanks so much for posting!!!!

Very Best, Carol

Not a clue why he's called Dennis, it's a nice name though and good to know he's a he...

They are closely related to the Floriada Manatee if I'm not mistaken. The big difference as far as I could see is the split tail from the Dugon...

Wikipedia has more

Great pics there.

What a beauty....

Not a clue why he's called Dennis, it's a nice name though and good to know he's a he...

 

They are closely related to the Floriada Manatee if I'm not mistaken. The big difference as far as I could see is the split tail from the Dugon...

 

Wikipedia has more

Funny but if Dennis's, well lets say his "he" anatomy is near where the male manatee's is located - well one of those sharksucker/remora is awfully close........

Yes they are "sirens (sirenia)" like the manatee and just as endearing. As you said there are differences, their "dolphin-like" tail is amazing as is the fact they don't have "fingernails" on their flippers like the manatee do?

Did Dennis scratch much or just feed? There skin seems smoother than the manatee's and I wonder if they even need to scratch on tree limbs, rocks, etc. as much as the manatee does?

Lots of interesting questions - your photos are wonderful, thanks!

Very best, Carol

As with the turtles in this area, they are incredibly clean due to the many large remorras around. The funny thing is that when we saw the enroumous dustcloud among the grass there were about 5 of these big remorras swimming around aimlessly. We even found a few deserted ones during our hour long swimsearch. So, I guess there's not much need to scratch!

These photo's were taken at the ras Muhammed bay near Port Ghalib, about half an hours drive from the Abu Dabbab area. Cleanest turtles I have ever seen! By the way, the many turtles at Abu Dabbab are about as clean as these too.

This one was seriously huge, I estimate about 1.5 meter/5 feet from fin to head. There were three of these gigantic ones an about 5-6 of the "smaller" ones. Not bad for just one dive!

The trick to finding "Dennis" is to watch the surface and wait for the ripples (if it is flat) when he comes up to breath. This will give you a general location to look for him.

Jason

I was the lucky man on the first photo.

I'm editing the HD videos of that day...

I'll show you the film soon...

It took us 2 saffaris finishing in Abu dabab to finaly see the Denis.

But not many know that there is another dive site nearby in direction of Port Ghalib with another Dugong probably the female everyone was talking about last time I've been there )