The wobbegong is a carpet shark and thus spends much of its time resting on the sea floor. At daytime one have to look under rocks and overhangs to find them resting.
On our trip to Raja Ampat we came across the tasselled wobbegong (Eucrossorhinus dasypogon), one of the 12 species of the Orectolobidae family aka carpet sharks on a regular basis.
Luckily we found some of them laying in the open or even swimming around.
Here some video footage of a swimming wobbegong
Diving in the Raja Ampat area is a priviledge. I can’t remember having witnessed that many schooling/shoaling fish in other areas. Sweetlips, barracudas, snappers, fusiliers, batfish, trevallies, surgeonfish and bigeyes all gather into one fantastic underwater symphony!
Take a plunge into Raja Ampat’s fishbowl!
I have never experienced winning the lottery. But this encounter with a whaleshark might get really close to the feelings of winning something big! Whalesharks are seldom seen in the narrow bay of Palu. I still remember my conversation with our dive guide Nasrun.
Me : I might go wide-angle on the housereef dive.
Nasrun : Naaw, housereef is only macro. I’ll show you some pygmy seahorses and ghostpipefish. Wide angle is not good on the housereef.
Me : ok, then, let’s do macro.
After roughly 30 minutes diving Nasrun looks at me and points to the sand below us. I didn’t understand. There was nothing to see. Then he lifted his head to the surface above us. So did I…and almost lost my regulator! A whaleshark just swam over our heads following our bubbles. Nasrun was actually pointing at the giant’s shadow in the sand below us.. My first thought was : Dammit, I’m on macro! Then I rembered my GoPro Camera attached to my housing. The gentle giant of about 5-6 meters cruised around us for more than 10 minutes, searching for the bubbles we expelled, a bit faster than usually, I have to admit.
Visibiltiy was not at it’s best, but here are the images of my big win!
Mona & Chris Photography 