Kapalai / Sipadan:

21st - 26th October 2006

 

 

This was the third trip this year and it keeps getting better every time!

 

As the spring tides came in, the visibility improved over the five days from just over 20 metres at Sipadan, to about 35 metres! Everybody's favourite dive was Barracuda Point, and the fantastic current that threw us along on the fourth day.

The low point was the attack of the vampire wrasse that bit my fin hard and had a go at everybody. A rapidly taken shot reveals that this beast is a member of the Coris genus. Like Triggerfish, nesting males are known to be aggressive.

Oddly, the dive guides did not know what it was, only to avoid it. In the literature it says that Coris sp., are distinguished by two prominent canine teeth on the upper and lower jaws. Indeed!! It displayed them by opening its mouth in a threatening gesture that was highly effective. Anyway the fish (only 30 - 40 cm long) got us all out of the water!

 

Sharks, barracudas, jacks and turtles were seen in abundance as usual and I fulfilled a long-held ambition to distinguish between a green and a hawksbill turtle.

 

 

 

Each day, after the usual excellent dusk dive, we retired to the sunset platform. On the 24th we were treated to the spectacle of the post-Ramadan sickle-moon sitting right beside Mercury and Jupiter.

 

 

 

 

 

Green Turtles and Hawksbill Turtles

 

The Green turtle (Chelonia mydas) is altogether a more common and bigger reptile growing to 1.5 metres and over 200 kg. The Hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) is smaller, not exceeding a metre and 60 kg. The head pattern is quite distinct, the Green (left) having two plates between the eyes and the Hawksbill (right) four.

 

The green turtle is so-called because of the greenish fat used to make turtle soup. The young have beautiful, patterned brown shells that become more bland and amorphous with age. Their diet is sea grass, jellyfish and algae.

The hawksbills all have a gorgeous shell, another reason for their demise. The edges of the shell are serrated and the head has a pronounced hawk-like beak that it uses to gouge the sponges on which it feeds.