Sad day on the reef...

I have a sad story to report today.

We were diving out at Molokini Crater, which was beautiful for the most part.  Although, the beautiful glassy seas that we've been enjoying for the past few weeks officially passed on.  We had our normal relatively calm seas with our light Maui tradewinds.  The diving was great, and the water was very clear, I think that the visibility was about 175 feet.  We saw tons of the usual suspects, and we even had an above average showing of White Tip reef sharks.  Unfortunately, the good and happy news is not what I am reporting today.

At the end of our first dive on the Ene Nui corner of Molokini Crater, I swam over to a familiar little rock that houses a special black sponge.  On that special black sponge we've grown accustomed to finding two special little Nudibranch friends.

For almost a year we have been visiting this black sponge a few times a week to visit a pair of Glossodoris Atromarginata Nudibranchs, which are extremely rare.  One of the local Nudibranch experts, (who is actually famous worldwide and in the diving hall of fame), Pauline Fiene told us that there hasn't been a sighting of a Glossodoris Atromarginata in over 7 years, which makes our little guys very special, (obviously they are not only ours, the other local divers watch them too).  We showed the pair to every diver that we could, and over the last year that was a lot of different people!  We even named the little guys "Chocolate Margin" Nudibranchs because the name was more fun.

But, today was different.  When I approached the little rock and searched the sponge, I only found one little guy and the other was no where on the sponge or in their usually hiding spots?  Since these Nudibranchs are only about an inch and a half long they can hide anywhere, so I wasn't too worried about not seeing the other one today.  It wasn't until I began to swim away from the rock that I found the other little creature.


Sad day at the reef from C3 Submerged on Vimeo.


On a rock about two feet away from the main rock, one of the little Chocolate Margins was sitting all along up on top of the littler rock.  Upon closer inspection, it was obvious that the little guy was either dead or dying.  It had been bitten or chewed up by something, but that didn't seem to be the reason it's life was coming to an end.  It actually looked like this one had crawled out away from the sponge to die, maybe to keep the scavengers who can smell decay away from it's home on the black sponge?  Maybe it did this to protect the one Chocolate Margin who still lives?

It was very sad to see one of our special Nudibranchs in such bad shape today.  We are not sure what the effects will be felt by the one Nudibranch left behind.  I don't know a lot about the species, but I think that they can live on their own and reproduce a-sexually.  Although, these two have spent over a year together on that sponge.  We have watched them lay eggs together, we have watched them eat the sponge together, and sometimes when we show up they are just sleeping in a crack together.  So I can't imagine that the remaining Chocolate Margin will do very well alone.

It will be interesting to watch, and I will do my best to keep you updated.

Aloha, talk soon.

John