Anilao Nov 2008, report & photos

how can I put it simply? Anilao rocks!!

All 3 of us had been to Lembeh before, but Anilao blew us away. we just completed 46 dives with Peri at Club Ocellaris.

I think we all wore out our camera shutters.

We saw dozens of unique critters, and over 100 nudibranch species. Bobbit worms, flamboyant cuttlefish, ambon scorpionfish, 6 pipehorse species, seahorses like crazy, wonderpus, 2 rhinopia species, mucho frogfish, huge schools jacks, napolean wrasse, schooling great barracuda, mantis shrimps under every rock, and the list goes on and on. The reefs were beautiful, all covered in more crinoids than i've ever seen in my life, in so many different colors. extremely healthy coral.

The resort and our guide were excellent. great food, great boat crew. vis was good, weather great, water was 81-84. We can't wait to go back! I think some of you guys have been keeping this place a secret thanks to james, jeff G., robin for answering my research questions before the trip.

Critter & reef photos can be seen here:

http://scottpenny.smugmug.com/gallery/6499507_9C9Kn#P-1-15

and my nudibranch gallery is here:

http://scottpenny.smugmug.com/gallery/6509968_gpuRK#P-1-15

and here's some sample photos:

enjoy, Scott

peacock mantis shrimp

juvenile comet fish

schooling jacks

Colemani shrimp

two squid

Rhinopia eschermeyersi

Pipefish carrying eggs

Phyllodesmium rudmani, Xenia mimic nudibranch

Rhinopia frondosa

Tiny frogfish

how can I put it simply? Anilao rocks!

 

The resort and our guide were excellent. great food, great boat crew. vis was good, weather great, water was 81-84. We can't wait to go back! I think some of you guys have been keeping this place a secret

Hi Scott, glad that you had such a nice time. And yes, we DO try to keep it a secret, but now you have let it out!

Wow - wonderful shots Steve - I'm glad it worked out. I can't wait to go back to Anilao as soon as the sprout can travel.

James

OK Scott, tell the truth. No way you could get these images from one trip. You had to steal these from about 20 "best of" websites right?

Congrats partner. Beautifully done. I love the light. The tiny frogfish is spectacular and the white Rhino is just nuts.

Cheers, no really I'm cheering,

Steve

Outstanding images - great job! I've been to Anilao once - the vis. wasn't great but from what we could see the critter diversity was excellent.

One question: I looked through the gallery on SmugMug and noticed you have the image info tagged for each image (very helpful BTW). I also noticed that for many of the macro shots you were shooting with a fairly high ISO (300-400). What made you dial up the ISO for many of the shots? I know the D300 can manage it - just wondered what was the reasoning? (other than you can w/that camera

Thanks...

Robin - hope to see you in Anilao one day!

James - thanks for the kind words, I'll bet you can't wait until the sprout can travel, how old is he/she now?

Steve - you're a gentleman and a scholar. I think even we were amazed how many critters on our list we saw, I think we reached 90% of our list. It came with a lot of hard work, especially from our guide. We were all looking every minute of each dive, and many subjects were found during the last few minutes of a 75-80 minute dive.

OYT - thanks for the nice compliment. I'm glad you found the image info in the gallery, it's a good way for people to learn from each other. keep in mind that it doesn't show if a diopter/teleconverter was used. I PM-ed you about the ISO, since that's an entire topic on it's own, best left to the technique/tip forum

Scott