Tag: Turtle

A Swim at Gab Gab

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I have written before about Gab Gab, a reef inside the harbor on the Navy Base. This is juts some pictures from one of my snorkels there, so you can see what it is like.

There are anemones, turtles, schools of fish, and all about a million awesome corals. It’s a beautiful place.

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This is a masked puffer. There are a lot of types of puffer fish here, but I don’t see them as much except in June and July (which seems to be when they are getting friendly with each other.)

The masked puffer is in front of some beautiful hard corals.

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These are soft corals growing on hard corals. The ocean is (for the moment) full of species competing for space.

I like how the soft corals seem to pop up and grow on things like mushrooms.

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There are several sea turtles that are usually seen around Gab Gab. I have looked online a lot, and it seems to me that they are Green Sea Turtles.

Several military spouses and insisted rather vehemently that they are hawksbill turtles. However, I don’t think that is the case.

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Above, you can see a cleaner wrasse eating parasites off two larger fish. One is a standard Parrot Fish, and one is a Rainbow Parrot fish.

Parrot fish have these tiny, silly-looking fins. I have no idea how they move to fast.

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At fist I thought these might be cuddle fish. However, upon more searching online, it looks as though they are reef squid.

I had never seen them at Gab Gab before August of 2017, but it seems that there is an explosion of squid and other invertebrates going on. I am glad, because I love the way they change color.

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Anyway, this is what it looks like swimming along the reef at Gab Gab.

It’s a really amazing experience to swim through these underwater gardens.  I am grateful that I got to see them.

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Great Barrier Reef

Baby Fish in Stag Coral

I should probably do my Australia posts in the order that they happened. And yet, I am too excited about my underwater pictures from the trip to even start looking through the above-water stuff.

Amazing Corals

So, it would seem that I am starting with The Great Barrier Reef.

Bleached Coral

The Reef actually has more bleaching than Guam. If I had to guess, I would say that the shallower water must be the reason (shallow water heats up faster.) Guam is next to the Marianas Trench, so I imagine the overall water temperature in our region might be colder, even though we are on the equator.

Giant Clam

You might think it is the types of coral, but it’s definitely not. Nearly all the corals I saw on the Great Barrier Reef were the same as the corals in Guam. There were only a few differences.

Turtle

Some of the fish I saw on the reef were bigger, which I would guess is because I was snorkeling in deeper water there than what I usually would (since I get better pictures in shallow water.)

Jellyfish

There were some huge parrot fish, as well as some large cod and sea bass. I saw a few sharks as well. In Guam I usually see black-tipped reef sharks, but on the reef I saw white-tipped reef sharks. So, that was new.

Rainbow Parrot Fish

It was jellyfish season, and I definitely didn’t know that when I booked the trip! We had to wear stinger suits the whole time.

Angel Fish and Giant Clam

I have actually never seen so many jellyfish in one place. However, the stinger suits protected us, and no one got stung except the guy who took his hood off.

Christmas Tree Worms in Coral.

My YouTube Channel has lots of footage of the Reef and all the cool things we saw. I definitely recommend taking a look, if you like the under water world.

Corals

The tour guides told me that the best time to see the reef is in August. That is the middle of winter in the southern hemisphere, so I would have thought it would be stormy then.

Love the blue stag coral

However, they say the summer is far more stormy, and the good visibility is definitely in August.

Reef Squid

So if you go to The Great Barrier Reef, I can recommend Carins Dive Center (who I went through) and their boat The Kangaroo Explorer (which I did the live abroad package on for three days and two nights.) But I can’t recommend going in January, because it was stormy and it was also jellyfish season.

Note: Click the links in this post to see the videos on my YouTube Channel.

Angel Fish Couple