Requested Pictures

Clown fish like to hide in the anemone for protection

A form of stingray, but with spots

An octopus reaching out with on of its arms to attempt to mate with the female (far left)

Xille and Amanda

Fesdhoo Wreck

Inside the wreck at Machchafushi

A crane on the deck of the wreck at Machchafushi

A stonefish lying on the Machchafushi wreck.  They are highly venomous, you can usually die with in a half hour.

A shot of bungalows with the reef underneath

The mothership for our diving

Octopus coming out of its hole

This site had a very large number of yellow snapper, easily in the thousands.

Nurse sharks are very tame

See my teeth!  This was taken from about a foot away from the shark, with a fisheye lens

Xille had some food for the rays

There are 19 reef sharks in this picture, but there were a total of 32.  they ranged in size from about 3 feet to over 6 feet.

The inside of Blue Force One, where we would meet or hang out to stay cool.

The stairs going down to rooms is on the right, the store in the back.

Where we ate our meals

The foredeck of the boat

The lounge on the third deck, with the bar in the back on the left

The top deck on the boat

A reef shark at Rasdhoo Corner

Opening the show

Notice how low the plan is flying

Out of Edwards Air Force base

If you expand the picture, you can see the flight suit

Incredible the tight formation

Look at the belly and you will see the number 5 is upside down.  A search on the internet suggests this is the "lead solo" pilot, and usually does the upside-down formations

Traveling so fast you can see the small contrails

Firing flares

The claim is there was 1 million people watching the air show.  I could believe it, the only open sand was the path for the lifeguard trucks.  When I left, there must have been 50 people lined up to order food, and a very crowded beach path

Helicopter in a full stall

A huge school of fish on Swanee Reef

Another large school of fish on Swanee Reef

The shark was at least 15 feet in length, the fisheye lens captures the whole thing nicely.

Very gentle, and very large

Opening its mouth to feed on plankton

The whale shark opening its mouth to feed on plankton.  It has no real teeth, but baleen instead,

These sardines were swimming with the whale sharks

They are very shy, and usually hide back in the sand when approached

These were very common

Very healthy coral

Playing in their cave of exploration

The sea lion pups will let you touch them

In their cave of exploration

This was actually within a few feet of the camera

Well, we weren't really supposed to go in, but we looked at each other and said "why not"

Robert inside the wreck

Multiple types of fish, including (I think) gray demoiselle (the little ones on the left), humbug dascyllus (the black stripe) and more

Commonly found

Several types of coral - Great Star Coral (lower right)

Not sure what type of coral

Staghorn Coral

The feathery looking stuff is crinoid - it sticks to wetsuits

Humbug Dascyllus and cardinalfish (the small yellow with gray stripes)

Babylon Wall

Usually more square body

Babylon Wall

The shark would not come close enough.

Using a special blue light and yellow filter captures the bioflourescence

Brain Coral

The view from our room