Truk Lagoon
Fish, critters and much more
I always thought that Truk Lagoon was wreck diver's paradise, and it truly was. However, some of those wrecks had such an amount of life on them that I ended up diving them with the macro lens exclusively, so I ended up with no pictured of wrecks, but lots of pictures fish and critters.
Truk Lagoon trip was my first sighting of anemone fishes or clowns (remember Nemo?). The more I shot of them the more I wanted to spend time with them - just could not get enough of watching them play hide and seek. Some were very shy and hard to shoot, while others just posed for the camera
Also first for me were the anemone shrimp sightings. They were so tiny and transparent that focusing was very hard - but the few in focus pictures were well worth the attempts. I also saw several other almost transparent shrimps
Yet another first and probably the most exiting was finding the blind bulldozer shrimp and the goby that live together in the same hole. I have read so much about this co-habitation, but never saw it before. Some of Truk sites had literally hundreds of shrimp and goby houses. Most occupants were very shy and did not want to pose for the camera, however, some shrimp-goby couples just ignored the camera completely, letting me take few shots
Various pipefishes were present in numbers at some sites
Blennies and gobies were abundant, first time I saw a lot of free swimming blennies.
Night dives brought out a lot of banded shrimps, prawns, crabs and lobsters.
The fire coral was home to a lot of little fishes and crabs.
Hawkfishes were definitely my favorite fish subjects of the week
Other highlights included numerous fishes, nudibranchs and flatworms. Lion fishes and puffers were ever present.
