Bare Island - Indian Fish & Cuttlefish

There was a bit of a swell coming in from the east, so we visited the sponge gardens on the west side of Bare Island. It was a fresh 16ºC in the water but somehow we still managed 2 dives at over 60 minutes each.

Bare Island is always a popular site, on the swim out to the sponge gardens it’s like a diving highway with divers constantly coming and going. I guess that’s one advantage of the low viz - even when there’s 20 other divers in the water, you and your buddy can still feel like the only ones there.

The highlight of these dives for me was seeing the Red Indian Fish. We spotted 5 in total! Although I had dived Bare Island several times before, this was my first time seeing these fish. They certainly look very unique with their long-based dorsal fin stretching from head to tail. And unlike most fish, they’re relatively motionless which (lucky for me) makes them extremely easy to photograph.

We also spotted a few small cuttle fish. The one below was being particularly flamboyant, flicking its arms over its head like an elephant’s trunk.