Cephalopods of Anilao

kelpdiver wrote:

PHXAZCRAIG wrote:

That's a small octopus in the first image. Are the others of similar size?

the blue ring is typically size of your fist. The flamboyant cuttlefish is much smaller.

the cuttlefish and the squid are larger, usually a challenge. A larger octopus on my 60 (120mm equiv) means partial head shots.

Sounds like my French Angel shots with a 105mm on FX...

Here's the only octopus I've seen out during the day in the Caribbean.

I started looking at airfares and saw some pretty low fares from LAX to Manila. Then I saw the flight times...

Going there is rougher, there's no way to dodge the jet stream. But return flight is 3 hours shorter. You can get small amount of relief breaking it up - flying to TPE first, or to HNL.

11 hours from HNL.   Hmm.   I like that better than from LAX, though the costs are undoubtedly higher to add a break there.

The reason you do it is the volume of subjects. There are dives where you see more sea horses in a single dive than you would in a week at any Caribbean destination. It's just an entirely different ball game.

So far the most I've seen on one dive is 3.

. Also much cheaper - 10 days hotel with 34 boat dives with 1-2 other customers in the boat - ~2500.

Now that does not sound cheaper to me.  I spend two weeks all inclusive in Roatan for about $1800, with max 39 dives.   So far I've only managed 37.

But not the place for Americans to go for a quick 5 day jaunt. Hawaii, Mexico, Carib does win there, though if it's not a direct flight from SF, most Carib destinations are nearly as long a transit, or worse. Often requires a redeye to Houston. I can fly to Fiji or MNL nearly as easily.

I hear you, but it used to be easier.  Still is depending on the time of year.   For me, it used to be a 2-hour flight to Houston, 2 hour layover and 2.5 hour flight to Roatan.  That was nice, but the 4am connecting flight from Phoenix to Houston was cancelled for September last year, and instead I've been flying to Miami, waiting 5 hours there and then 2.5 hours to Roatan.

I first flew (across the atlantic) in 1961.   Flying was a lot nicer then.