Bobtail Squid, Okinawa Japan

During the day there was a pathway of dark blue water you could see from my house.  I called it pufferfish lane.  Pufferfish would sleep in this waterway during low tide.  At night, if the water was calm, you could see references or landmarks to pufferfish lane.  Right before I would go down this canal, there was a sandy bottom where bobtail squid would always be later on in the night.  So, I would look carefully on the way out for them.  Sometimes I would not see them on the way out but I knew I could see them on the way back in.  This was one of those nights.  I was just finishing off a really great dive and I found the sandy bottom right before the water got really shallow.  I was looking to my right and saw this dark blue blob in the water and instantly knew it was my Bobtail Squid.  This Bobtail squid was showing some really bright colors and was just sitting on top of the sand.  I had to move in close and was really slow in my approach.  I knew if I moved too fast, he would be in the sand and all the color of this photo would be lost.  I got lucky that he stayed out as long as he did and I really liked how powerful and bright the colors came out in this image.  Bobtail squid photographs are usually taken in the shallows.  The deepest I have seen a bobtail was about 45 feet deep.  But most, like this one, are no deeper than 30 feet in the sand.   This bobtail squid was very large.  He was almost an inch (2.54 cm) long.