Ishigaki Adventure Part 3: Nudibranch exhibition ^^

In the previous scuba post, I left out one of the best things from the dive: hunting for nudibranches. I thought they deserved their own post. So here is my Nudibranch Exhibition Gallery (again, all pictures were taken by the lovely underwater-artistic divemasters/buddies from Umicoza, during my dives with them). For non-divers, a the layman`s term for nudibranch is "sea slug." (In Japanese, it`s umi-ushi, or sea-cow). But I hope you`ll agree, after checking out these excellent specimens, that they deserve a more refined name.

This picture is so crisp and clear and how it really looked, I could kiss the photographer:

Nudibranches Unite Convention

...you can`t tell much from the pictures above, but these colorful, beautiful creatures are quite small. Most of the ones I saw in Ishigaki were 1 inch long or less. You can kind of get a better idea of their size from the following far-away shots:

Possibly my favorite nudibranch picture of the bunch-- doesn`t it look like her hair is blowing in the wind?

Here`s the "Halloween" nudibranch that I found!

All curled up like a cat...

For 4 days of dives, I think we found quite a few! :)