Scuba Diving the Surins: Second Dive at Richelieu Rock

Dive #2 at Richelieu Rock and the sun was shining, bringing out all the purples:

A blurry nudibranch photo.  Both Tim and I are officially awful at taking nudibranch photos.  This one was the best in Tim's bunch, and it's pretty bad:

Tim caught these cute banded boxer shrimp hanging out on the reef, right below a big old oyster.  You can see their white antennae and bold, striped arms:

This video below is so sweet... peacock mantis shrimp!!!  Remember him?  One of the divemasters on our boat described the mantis shrimp as being skittish because "if your eyesight made it seem like you were constantly on an acid trip in which you see thousands of colors, you would be easily freaked out, too."  I was so excited when Tim told me he thought he got it on film since we've seen it many times, but haven't been able to film it since it moves so fast.  Tim said he saw it, but it quickly hustled back into its hole.  Tim waited quietly for a few seconds, and sure enough, it popped back out to take care of business:

Other highlights: These pickhandle barracuda hunting on the edge of the reef: amazing!  They're so sleek.  And a bit menacing when you turn around and see them hovering behind you.  They're pretty damn big:



Cuttlefish!!!!  These beautiful and mesmerizing cuttlefish were hanging out at the top of the reef right where we descending for our dive (some of the video is from our third dive, during which we saw them again):



It seemed like the biggest one was macking on a female, while the other two were trying to sneak in and snag a piece, too.  The big one was having none of it, though, chasing them off with tentacles flared.  Eventually one of the secondary suitors ended up retreating and bopping around just below me on the reef for a bit.  He seemed a little... put out.  Or maybe just regrouping for another go:

Beautiful glow they have, no?

Here's the full dive video: