Diving Is Life

Geometric moray eel, Gymnothorax griseus, are very common in this area of Mauritius. We find them sticking their head out of small holes as well as out and about during the day (this is considered unusual as they’re nocturnal). They always seem to be ready to be photographed and appear fairly relaxed around divers.

Their name is due to the black dots marking their face and body. Read on to find out what those spots actually do for the eel.

📏 up to 65cm / 2ft

🎨 lines of black dots mark their greyish face and down their mucus-covered body. They can be considered pale purple too depending on the depth where you see them sticking their head out of a cavern during the day). Their body tends to look cream-coloured

🦷 small, rounded teeth which seems a bit unusual given what they enjoy eating; you’ll also notice them opening and closing their mouth which is to flush water, and therefore oxygen, over their exposed gills on the side of their body

🏠 coral and rocky reefs to about 40m / 131 ft, sometimes with other eels both of their own kind and other species too

🍽️ night time hunters so you may see them out and about looking for crustaceans and possibly small fish. Sometimes with a grouper following them as they flush out fish which the grouper then eats.

🚼 they produce both s***m and eggs so will release either while mating. Apparently only one other moray eel does this so I’m trying to find which one that is!

🤯 not just a pretty face, with an extra set of nostrils to help them smell their prey, those black dots are actually pores which are used to sense movement and pressure changes

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📸 Diving Is Life (me) - one of my favourite types of eel as they remind me of The Muppets. More specifically, the two older gentlemen that sit in the balcony watching the show - Statler & Waldorf. Every time I see this eel, it makes me smile as a result!

📍 Dive Spirit Mauritius Mauritius - we see these eels at many dive sites in the Trou aux Biches area. From wrecks to reefs, both volcanic rock and coral, they seem to not have a location preference.

Scrawled filefish, 𝘈𝘭𝘶𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘶𝘴 𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘱𝘵𝘶𝘴, you would think would be fairly easy to find with their bright blue lines and spots. They are able to quickly change their colour to blend with their surroundings including fading their distinctive markings!

📏 110cm / 3.6ft though they are usually between 31-76cm / 1-2.5ft
⚖️ 2.5kgs / 5.5lbs
🎨 blue spots and lines haphazardly places and a few smaller black spots near the face covering a brownish to grey body (depending on where they are living). They can change their colour.
🦷 They have strong incisor-like teeth which they use to chisel holes into mollusk shells, and break off chunks of coral. It has 6 on its top jaw and the same or a few less on the bottom. It has a long, pointed snout and a small mouth.
🏠 1-120m / 3-393ft though usually less than 30m / 98ft near coral and rocky reefs, sometimes wrecks. Young will drift with debris a long way from shore. They all prefer warmer waters (a bit like me!)
🍽️ algae, hydrozoans, gorgonians, tunicates, small crustaceans, colonial anemones and sea grass and even fire corals!
🚼 one male fertilises the eggs of a few females who lay them on the ocean floor. The female then guards the eggs so they’re not eaten by predators
🤯 all filefish have small scales which makes their skin feel like sandpaper. This is why they are called “filefish”.

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📸 .ig (me) - I was so excited to find this fish as they’re one of my favourites! Their tail reminds me of Chinese calligraphy brushes and they look amazing when they are fanned out.

📍 Mauritius - this was on a local wreck, it was unusual to see by itself as normally in our area they are in pairs. That said, they are known for being solitary so maybe this one had read the various fish books / websites!

Scrawled filefish, 𝘈𝘭𝘶𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘶𝘴 𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘱𝘵𝘶𝘴, you would think would be fairly easy to find with their bright blue lines and spots. They are able to quickly change their colour to blend with their surroundings including fading their distinctive markings!

📏 up to 110cm / 3.6ft though they are usually between 31-76cm / 1-2.5ft
⚖️ up to 2.5kgs / 5.5lbs
🎨 blue spots and lines haphazardly places and a few smaller black spots near the face covering a brownish to grey body (depending on where they are living). They can change their colour.
🦷 They have strong incisor-like teeth which they use to chisel holes into mollusk shells and break off chunks of coral. It has 6 on its top jaw and the same on the bottom or a few less. It has a long, pointed snout and a small mouth.
🏠 1-120m / 3-393ft though usually less than 30m / 98ft near coral and rocky reefs, sometimes wrecks. Young will drift with debris a long way from shore. They all prefer warmer waters (a bit like me!)
🍽️ algae, hydrozoans, gorgonians, tunicates, small crustaceans, colonial anemones and sea grass and even fire corals!
🚼 one male fertilises the eggs of a few females who lay them on the ocean floor. The female then guards the eggs so they’re not eaten by predators
🤯 all filefish have small scales which makes their skin feel like sandpaper. This is why they are called “filefish”.

👉 Follow me for more fish facts, other interesting sea and scuba information plus photos!

📸 Diving Is Life (me) - I was so excited to find this fish as they’re one of my favourites! Their tail reminds me of Chinese calligraphy brushes and they look amazing when they are fanned out.

📍 Dive Spirit Mauritius - this was on a local wreck at about 18m / 59ft and it was unusual to see it by itself as normally in our area they are in pairs. That said, they are known for being solitary so maybe this one had read the various fish books / websites!

I’m back from the longest holiday I’ve had in quite a while and none of it was spent underwater!

Weird, right?🤪

Had a great time catching up with family and friends in France and eating & drinking my way around the country side.

The wetsuit was a bit of a struggle…😂

- ready for a night dive that was just about a year ago this evening.

Our briefing done, torch skills refreshed, kit all ready to go, it’s time to relax and take some photos as the sun goes down.

We usually wait until the sunsets before we get in the water 🌄

Then we backward roll and it begins…

📸 (IG) - she takes photos every dive and my favourites are the group selfies she does with everyone before entering the water. It has everyone in even higher spirits before we get into the water. Clearly I’m already keen to get in! 😝

📍Dive Spirit Mauritius - we organise night dives regularly, more so in the summer months when the water is warmer and choose between a wreck or a reef each time.

👉 book a night dive with me in Mauritius by DM, email, or WhatsApp and see what comes out in the dark!

This reef stonefish (Synanceia verrucosa) hasn’t read about where it’s meant to live and has taken up residence on this wreck ⚓

Maybe it’s on holiday 🏝️

It’s not something arty with the photo either. The wreck is on its side and the fish is straight upward on it, hunting.

🏠 usually sand, rubble, something it can bury under. Usually from 30cm to around 45m. They tend to stay in the same place for a few months.
🍽️ crustaceans and small fish - it’s an ambush predator and can strike their prey in .015 seconds!
🎨 lumpy, camouflaged with surroundings, large pectoral fins that remind me of sausages
📏38cm
☠️ deadliest fish in the ocean with venom that can kill people. It’s in the spines which can even pierce boots!

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📸 Diving Is Life (me) - the challenge with photographing these is finding them and then getting in the right position! They always seem to remind me of mashed potato…

📍Dive Spirit Mauritius - this was on KT Mawar and I’ve seen them on a couple of other wrecks here too in other unusual positions.

Turtles 🐢 camouflage surprisingly well however this one is a bit more extreme than most green turtles as its shell is an unusually high dome.

Not sure why this is the case but it does add to the challenge of spotting it as it blends really well with the rocks around it. 👀

Doesn’t look terribly comfortable with the way its resting though!

👉 Comment below with how much you love spotting turtles 😍

📸 Diving Is Life (me) - I’ve seen this particular turtle a few times (this one is easy to recognise compared to some others!) and it always seems to be in positions that look uncomfortable. It doesn’t seem to mind having its photo taken as long as we keep our distance. I have a few of it face on too but there’s something about this one that I like.

📍 Dive Spirit Mauritius - we’re in an area where there are quite a few dive sites where we regularly see turtles and a couple of spots in particular where the chances are pretty high. That said, there have been occasions where we’ve gone looking and found none at those sites but that’s very rare!

It’s a red-ringed octopus! 🐙

It’s actually a common day octopus however it’s changed its camouflage to take on pinks and reds and has managed to make it a circle pattern.

Amazing what these creatures can do with their skin!

⬇️ Comment below if you’ve seen an octopus change its colour to red / pink or another unusual pattern.

📸 Diving Is Life (me) - everyone knows I love octopuses! This is only my second time to see an octopus change its skin pattern to have red circles. Once it was relaxed again, it changed to its usual brown with the white stripe down its head.

📍Dive Spirit Mauritius - octopus can be found at quite a few of the dive sites in the north and at all sorts of depths too. This one was at 12m.

A sea slug hitching a ride on a sea cucumber - clearly not for speed! 🏎️

This Ceylon phyllidiella doesn’t move quickly at the best of times.

Nor does this pineapple sea cucumber (Thelenota ananas) which tend to mostly remain fairly still. 🍍🌊🥒

Perhaps neither has a need to move quickly since the sea slug is toxic to most creatures and the sea cucumber’s main predator is usually land-based (yes, it’s people) 🤔

Sea cucumbers are often hosts to numerous parasites and if you look closely, sometimes you can find other life there too.

Ceylon phyllidiella
🏠 coral and rocky reefs to around 25m (or sea cucumbers as it turns out!)
🍽️ sponges 🧽
🎨 black with white lumpy ridges (called tubercles) which usually run the whole body and curve to meet at the end

Pineapple sea cucumber
🏠 sand on the ocean floor to around 30m
🍽️ calcareous alga - it’s a specific algae and it only eats this one
🎨 large with star-shapes covering their body, usually in groups of two or three

⬇️Comment below if you’ve seen one sea-life acting as transport for another.

📸 Diving Is Life (me) - I try to look closely at the ones I see because you never know what you might find!

📍Dive Spirit Mauritius - Boulder Reef, a great spot for a lot of sea life and an interesting landscape too.

The occasional chaos that is a school of juvenile striped eeltail catfish (Plotosus lineatus). 💥

Normally schools of these fish look highly organised.

They appear as a rolling ball as those along the bottom feed use their barbels to sense food through the sand and then move up the ball to let the next in line down for their turn at feeding.

It’s awesome to watch!

And sometimes they get a little confused…

In this case, they were swimming along and those at the bottom steered them into an overhang so the ball could no longer move forward. They’re trying to get themselves organised again to get out and feed again.

There are 41 species of eeltail catfish yet not all of them can sting.

This species can through their dorsal fin and pectoral fins and there are reports that it can be fatal.

It’s also the only catfish found in coral reefs.

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📸 Diving Is Life (me) - I could almost watch these for as long as I could watch an octopus. They are mesmerizing! 🤩

📍Dive Spirit Mauritius - they are found at quite a few of the dive sites in the north of Mauritius. Just have to keep your eyes out for them along sandy patches near protected areas.

Happy Monday from a baby clownfish safely hiding in its anemone home.

Clownfish are all born male and stay small and male until the breeding female clownfish dies.

Then the adult male of the breeding pair becomes female and the next biggest male grows and becomes the dominant male.

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📸 Diving Is Life (me) - they’re fun fish to photography but they move so fast and with the anemone wafting too, it adds to the challenge!

📍Dive Spirit Mauritius - clownfish are at many of the dive sites in the north of Mauritius. You just need to know where to look!

🐙Octopus - 1 to threespot dascyllus - 0

Round 2
This day octopus (Octopus cyanea) threw quite a few punches at the various threespot dascyllus (Dascyllus trimaculatus) over the time we watched.

It and its new partner (she’s hiding behind him) had unintentionally ventured into the dascyllus (aka domino fish) territory.

These fish will defend their territory from anything that enters into it - octopus, divers, other fish, eels and more.

The octopus just wanted some time with his new mate so was quite aggressive in trying to get the fish to move away.

It threw multiple punches and flicked the fish with the same te****le though rarely hit it.

It wound it’s arm up and flung it out.

Round 3
Both octopus ended up slowly retreating, first around the corals, and then into a large crack where it threw one last punch.

Winner - threespot dascyllus! 🏅

👉Follow for more octopus and fish information. Video of this interaction will follow shortly!

📸 .fb (me) - everyone knows I could watch octopus for an entire dive and this one gave quite a show for the group I was leading. We were all keen to see how it played out.

📍 - another group descended over this lump of coral and happened to spot the octopus. They signaled what they had seen and as they moved, my group kept a respectful distance so could see what happened next without disturbing the octopuses or the fish.

Night dive photo bomber!

The threespot dascyllus (Dascyllus trimaculatus) was being territorial, trying to discourage the eel (which was the subject of this photo) from staying in its area.

Now I have more photos of this fish than I do of the eel!

This fish is also called the domino damsel as you can usually see one white spot on either side of its body and one on the head.

Though not always….

Sometimes it just looks like a black fish.

And sometimes grey.

And sometimes light brown.

And it can change its colour between these shades fairly quickly.

With or without spots. 🥴

One of the many reasons fish ID can be challenging!

🏠 juveniles usually in groups within an anemone or sea urchin; adults among rocks and corals
📏 14cm
🍽️ algae and small crustaceans

📸 Diving Is Life (me) it’s a night dive so I don’t like to shine my torch too long on one thing or take too long to take a photo as it may attract the predator of whatever it is I’m taking the photo of. A few quick snaps and I’m on my way. Now I have a few more of this fish and not quite as many of the baby eel that I’d hoped!

📍Dive Spirit Mauritius - we were diving on the wreck, Stella Maru ⚓. It looks quite different at night partly due to the corals growing on it and partly due to the sea life that is then more active. It’s awesome!

Guess what we’re doing this evening? 🌙🤿

Taking my favorite torch. 🔦

I’ve gone through a lot of torches over the years.

Mostly due to flooding - all my own fault!

This one is the first I’ve had that’s impossible to flood.

It charges by attaching a power chord that comes with it, directly into the torch itself. There’s no need to unscrew / rescrew anything.

No batteries to replace. 🔋

Turning it on and off is done with buttons so no turning anything either. 🔘

There is absolutely no way that I can possibly flood this thing! 😀

On top of that, the light itself is awesome - it’s bright and has various settings, including SOS.

So yes, while it is expensive compared to other torches, it’s a lot cheaper than me repeatedly replacing flooded torches!

What’s your favourite torch?

📍 Dive Spirit Mauritius - we’re going to be doing our night dive on a wreck called Stella Maru ⚓

The snow-capped anemone shrimp (Periclimenes brevicarpalis) or peacock tail anemone shrimp only has one place to call home given that name!

It’s protected from the anemone’s sting as its covered in mucus which the anemone supplies.

In return, it eats the leftovers of the anemone to help keep it clean.

Ahhh symbiosis….

These shrimps are usually found in pairs with the female being the larger of the two. The male is more transparent and it’s likely that it is the female that has the snow-capped head and more white on the tail.

🏠 anemone to around 25m
🍽️ anemone leftovers including tiny invertebrates
📏 4cm
🎨 translucent with white, oval markings down the body; nippers and legs have bright purple markings; both sexes have tails that spread into a five-leafed fan 🦚, each with an orange dot surrounded in black.

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📸 Diving Is Life (me) - these are beautiful to look at and watch go about their business. I’ve been experimenting with which angle is the best to photograph these from to capture how cool they are to look at! My experiments will continue 😀

📍 Dive Spirit Mauritius - these were taken near Little Arch. This dive site is a gateway to a few other great spots too so I use it as a starting point for a few of my dives. Great for less experienced divers as it’s at 12m though experienced divers also love this area!

The decorated goby (Istigobius decoratus) is mostly found spending its time, waiting for food or hiding, on sand.

There are more than 2,200 species of gobies and some look quite similar to each other.

All gobies have two dorsal fins so that helps you to know you’re looking at a goby rather than a blennie, sandperch or something else.

They are a bit different to many other fish as they don’t have a swim bladder.

When frightened, they use their pelvic fins to push themselves quickly forward along the sand with their tail pointing towards the potential predator.

The decorated goby has a distinctive pattern on the lower part of its body with the spots changing to orange nearer its head.

Most gobies have pelvic fins that act as suckers but this one doesn’t. These ones are more useful for standing on.

🍽️ microorganisms sifted out of the sand
🏠 anywhere on the substrate, though usually on sand. It makes them different from sleeper gobies as they don’t live in burrows. They seem to prefer their area to have an overhang so they’re protected from above. Usually found at a depth of up to 18m.
📏 about 9cm
⏳ less than a year
💍 they are couples for life with the female spawning every 13 days. She lays these in a burrow and the male then cares for them for about 1-4 days.
There’s ongoing research about their reproductive behaviour which suggests that males may switch females to a larger one. Females also seem to prefer the larger males as they can make larger burrows to look after the eggs. Perhaps they should be called “couples for life unless one bigger comes along”.

It’s all very interesting!

👉 if you also find this interesting, follow for more fish facts.

📸 Diving Is Life (me) - I have a few blurry photos of this one as it moved away quickly! They scare easily so they need a slow approach. This one was young too as it was less than 4cm long and appeared almost see through. It was under an overhang so I was close to the sand trying to keep my camera steady. Fun to take and a good challenge!

📍 - at a section of Emily Reef. This is a great site for all sorts of tropical fish, the occasional turtle and octopus too.

Ready to take on the weekend like this leaf fish (Taenianotus triacanthus)? 🤩

This one looks like it means business and has been patiently waiting in the same area for the last two weeks for its favourite food to move near.

It then shuffles itself slowly forward, by using its pectoral fins, before quickly opening its mouth and sucking in its food like a vacuum cleaner!

🍽️ larvae, small fish and crustaceans
📏 10cm at the most
🏠 shallow to around 130m though we’re not diving that deep to look for them!
🎨 they molt every two weeks or so and can take on the colour surrounding them so they can better camouflage if they move location.

Right now you might be thinking “How can pink / purple possibly help it to blend in?” Remember that fish don’t see colour the way we do so this could be perfect. Seems to have been effective so far too as it hasn’t been eaten yet!

👉 Follow me if you’re interested to know more about the fish of the Indian Ocean and Mauritius.

📸 Diving Is Life (me) - the tricky part of taking leaf fish photos (other than finding them) is they have the tendency to position themselves in a way that makes it challenging to be either side on or front on to them. They like to perch under things (including under anemones) or right next to rocks. I was lucky this one had come out from under the ridge where it had been recently and could be in front of it.

The other challenge is their movement. They like to move their body and sway so they can fool the undersea life (and divers too, as it turns out) that they are a leaf. This then means a blurry photo.

📍Dive Spirit Mauritius - another at Poison Reef. I’ve been there quite a bit lately as we’ve had many divers interested in seeing what this site has to offer. I’m enjoying it too since it’s fun to try to find well hidden sea-life.

Easy to spot the danger for these short-tooth cardinalfish (Ostorhinchus apogonoides) when a little light is added.🔦

Comment below if you see the reef stonefish too (Syanceia verrucosa)? 👀

It was waiting patiently, blending beautifully with its surroundings, while a small school of these cardinals swum pretty close to it.

It will wait until one is close enough and with an amazing burst of speed, it will engulf the fish (shrimp or crustacean) whole.

As in, less that a tenth of a second! 🤯

They may look sluggish but they’re definitely not!

👉 follow for more interesting fish facts.

📸 Diving Is Life (me) I enjoy looking for these fish though we don’t usually see them as red underwater given that’s the first colour to change at depth. It’s usually a brown / black to our eyes. It’s only with a flash or light that we can then see them as red or pinks.

This one was well hidden under a ledge and looked exactly like a… stone 😆. No wonder the cardinals missed seeing it.

📍 - at Poison Reef though we can find this fish at quite a few sites if we’re looking carefully.