For the fourth time this year I’m very excited to have the cover shot for Sport Diving Magazine. It’s always very exciting to have a shot on the front cover of a magazine. Sadly, however, I’m in the UK at the moment so I can’t linger in newsagents waiting for someone to pick up a copy!
The shot is of a Xeno Crab (Xenocarcinus tuberculatus) on a seapen. I took the image at Scuba Seraya in northern Bali, when I was stranded an extra week in Indonesia after the terrible flooding of January 2011 in Brisbane, where I was living at the time. Obviously there are worse places to be stranded but it was also a worrying time, being able to only get scant reports of the damage in Brisbane.
It is very unusual to see Xeno crabs on seapens as they generally favour huge whip corals in deep water. These crabs cut polyps off their host and stick them onto their carapace (shell) to aid their camouflage. I love the vibrant colours and textures of the seapen and the almost alien appearance of the crab. Hope you do too!