Bobtail Squid

Sometimes the best stuff is right at the beginning of the dive.  This was no exception.  The bobtails were out in full force and this one was huge!!!  Maybe the size of nickel, an American 5 cent coin.  I was able to put on my biggest wet lens I have.  The +23 wet lens, that weighs in at one pound.  The image was magnified 23 times and to my surprise a shrimp was posing for me as well.  Skeleton shrimp are very small and can be overlooked when taking images.  In this case he or she, wanted to be a part of the action.  The colors on this bobtail, were on full display and I was less than half an inch from his face.  My dive partner and I would always walk down some steps slowly, put our fins on in between the little waves and float across a reef.  At the end of the reef, is where there was a drop off spot where a ton of cephalopods congregated almost every night.  As soon as we descended almost instantly, there he was.  The night was just beginning but this bobtail was out ready to go.  I took several shots fast because I knew this was the beginning of the dive and I didn’t want my dive partner waiting.  He knew I would be there for a while so he circled back after a while to get me to explore other parts of dive site.  This dive location was one of my favorite because we could see blue ring octopus, bobtail squid, Japanese reef squid, flamboyant cuttlefish and many other cephalopods in a concentrated area.  Not to mention, you could also hear Humpback whales in the winter, singing at night.