I have just left Ambon in Indonesia where we spent Christmas and New Year at Maluku Divers. After a great trip in 2009/2010 it was good to be back and see many of the same happy faces. We exclusively muck dived for 8 days and much like the diving in Lembeh Strait, the world’s most popular muck dive location, it was completely different this trip. If you’re wondering what muck diving is you should follow this link and have a read of my article on the subject published earlier this year in Sport Diving magazine.
This trip to Ambon was all about the Rhinopias scorpionfish. We saw a total of seven, 4 weedy (Rhinopias frondosa) and 3 paddle flap (Rhinopias eschmeyeri), which is an unheard of tally. They are very very rare ordinarily! You might also be interested in the blog I wrote about how to identify these amazing scorpionfish (they are frequently confused). For the first time I saw purple Rhinopias of both the weedy and paddle flap species which was exciting!
Some of the other creatures we saw were frogfishes (although fewer than our previous trip), plenty of seahorses (Hippocampus kuda and H. histrix) and interesting nudibranchs. I also have a new obsession with coral gobies after seeing redheaded coral gobies (Paragobiodon echinocephalus) for the first time.
Check out my images from this trip here.