The first 20 minutes of the dive were ho-hum...a few eels, a puffer, lots of surgeonfish. Then I spotted a nudibranch that looked similar to the relatively common Imperial nudibranch, but upon closer inspection I knew I had never seen one of these before. This was glossodioris tomsmithi, otherwise known as Tom Smith's slug. Tom surely could have come up with a more creative name.
Five minutes later, I discovered yet another not-so-common and never-seen-before critter...the polkadot slug. But the best was yet to come.
After a short surface interval and chat with a local dive photographer (Rodney), we headed out for the second dive. Similar to the first dive, not much was happening during the early part of the dive. We did find what I believe was a tiger moray eel, which would have been yet another "first", but only a small portion of the body was exposed, making a positive ID uncertain.
Then, 50 minutes into the dive, I ducked my head down inside a small cave and spotted a *big* tail with a white tip. At the other end of that tail was a modest-sized whitetip reef shark, doing lazy circles inside the cave.
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