On Thu, 19 Jun 2003 Crusty Russ <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

<snip of the kiwi shears>
>We returned there on our last day of diving to do the side and top of
>the bombie that was so pretty.

Bugger!! I really wanted to go back to that particular spot just to take
piccies on top of that beautiful bommie.

<snip of the kiwi shears>
>So the drill was to push the camera down a couple of times, attract the
>banner fish, then quickly grab the camera, focus, and shoot when the
>sharks approached.

Talking of banner fish ... it became apparant to me during the 2002Cayman
NEDfest, while we were watching video footage of the Great Barrier Reef,
that many folk did not know the difference between a long finned bannerfish
and the moorish idol .. everything was labelled a moorish idol (rightly or
wrongly) ;-)  So, as this mis-identification problem occured again during
this miniNEDfest, when the schooling long finned banner fish came out in en
masse on some dives, out came the fish reference books and soon everyone
was enlightened.

I found myself digging around in the reference books just about every day
to learn more about something new I'd seen, in particular the feeshes I'd
chanced upon in the juvenile or sub-adult state. Ya never stop learning :-)

<snip of the kiwi shears>
>Danna got three good ones of the sea snake hunting on the reef, as it
>passed right above her, and again when the snake took a breather on the
>surface.  The only one I kept was a totally blurred pic of it trying to
>give Viv a sniff and her fending it off with a Nikon.  :-)

The RS is heavy enough to also give the Tritan triggerfish a good thump,
which I had to do on a dive during the PNG sector of my trip.  But, in the
case of that banded sea snake, it looked like it thinking about twirling
itself along the length of my strobe arm so I tried to shoo it away. It's
better to be safe than sorry .. I did not fancy even the remotest chance of
getting nipped by it on the hand.
Viv