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Hippocampus Pontohi
From very big to very small. The highlight of my next trip were Pygmy Seahorses, and one in particular, a hugely pregnant male Hippocampus Pontohi.
But let me back up a bit. The year was 2006 and I was in my final year of my undergraduate degree, when I saw a documentary about the Pindito on Swiss television. The Pindito was at the time one of the few liveaboards operating in Raja Ampat, which is located in the North-East corner of Indonesia. I was blown away by the fish live depicted and I decided to give myself this trip as a graduation present.
Because the dive cruise was scheduled over Christmas and New Years Eve, and the plane tickets were at a premium, I decided to head to Indonesia a bit earlier and also visit Bali, Lombok and the Gili islands. One of my most memorable non-diving moments happened on Lombok, when I climbed to the top of Mount Rinjani, but that might be the topic for another best of blog.
On the Pindito, I was introduced to Pygmy Seahorses. Tiny Seahorses that clung to huge fan corals. At first I had a very hard time finding them, even when the dive guide pointed them out, they were so small! And so it felt like a huge achievement, when by the end of the trip, I managed to find them on my own.
At that time the flight connections from Sorong to Singapore weren't that good, so I ended up spending three days near Manado, where I went diving in the Bunaken National Marine Park.
On a dive at Abang Point, our dive guide found this pregnant male Hippocampus Pontohi, only a couple of days before giving birth. Having had lots of experience in the last couple of weeks of taking pictures of Pygmy seahorses I did manage to get a decent shot.
More pictures from that trip can be found here.
Quote from my original blog post:
The last dives
Stranded for two days in
Manado with nothing to do but Scuba-Diving. So that's what I did. My two
last dives of this vacation took place at Bunaken National Park in
North Sulawesi. The dives were fantastic. We saw millions of fishes, as
well as the rare Hippocampus Pontohi, a small seahorse that's just been
discovered two years ago.
However,
there was a lot of trash on the water surface, as well as underwater.
Making me wonder what they use the National Park entrance fee for...
Labels: diving, pictures
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