You should have seen the grin on Alex’s face a few days ago.  We reckon she will win this year’s PD competition for the most epic sighting – a hammerhead shark. These big fellas are not very common around here, but the group of divers that she guided on Vaavaru Outreef were some of the lucky ones to have spotted this rare creature. Even though it passed by in a blink of an eye everybody froze at the sound of Alex’s rattle and admired the shark.

Hammerhead sharks, that can grow up to 6 meters, use their oddly shaped heads to improve their ability to find prey. Their wide-set eyes give them a better visual range than most other sharks. And by spreading their highly specialized sensory organs over their wide, mallet-shaped head, they can more thoroughly scan the ocean for stingrays, their favourite food.

Despite its wide array of techniques used to avoid or thwart attackers, even an octopus can find itself beyond the line of defense. Willi took a photo of a rare sighting – an octopus’ failed attempt to escape a moray eel’s grasp.

Besides its unusual appearance by far the most striking characteristic of the octopus is their ability to hide in plain sight. Using a network of pigment cells and specialized muscles, it can almost instantaneously match the colours, patterns and even textures of its surroundings. If discovered by predators such as sharks, eels and dolphins, it will release a cloud of black ink to obscure its attacker’s view and dull its sense of smell. Their soft bodies can squeeze into impossibly small cracks, and if even that fails, an octopus can lose an arm and regrow it later.

Nevertheless, it’s not all fun and games even for the ocean’s toughest survivors.

Let’s not waste words this time. If you were to compile a list of top ten fantasy dives, you’d include diving with dolphins in the wild, wouldn’t you?

Our divers, guided by Sebastjan, were incredibly lucky to be greeted by four dolphins at Christmas Rock and then again at Easa Faru in the Noon Atoll. Hannah took this lovely photo and let’s use it as a teaser for those of you who have been here and all of you who have just to decide to come!

You think you’ve seen it all. And then you come across masters of camouflage that amaze you with their colours, patterns and un-fish-like behaviour.

Anyone being fortunate enough to spot a frogfish will surely stop and ponder its spectacular and bizarre appearance. They are bottom dwellers, using their tiny fins to clumsily move around, and if the need arises to swim, they suck in water through their massive mouth and eject it from their gill holes behind their head, jet-propelling themselves across the bottom. Attracted to the tasty looking lure on their head, the prey is rapidly swallowed whole as the frogfish literally stretches its mouth to the same size as its body. How creepy is that?

Ornate ghostpipefish, with their incredible ability to mimic their surroundings, are a rear find too. They are normally found living around crinoids, featherstars, gorgonian fans and branching black coral bushes. Here they live very well camouflaged by their complex colour patterns and body shape, especially their skin flaps. Another sighting divers practically drool over!

Disguised, yet not impossible to spot. Antonio was lucky to find both at Ali Thila. We’re keeping our fingers crossed for more photo opportunities like this!

On the 29 of July, four Prodivers staff, Jenna, Swen, Karin and Michael, went on a lunch break dive on the Housereef. While searching for a Halimeda Ghost Pipefish amongst the leaves of the Halimeda algae, Jenna stumbled across a strange moving piece of algae.

At first we all were confused as to what it might have been and the closer we looked the more it resembled a small crab. We took some photographs of it and after the dive we found out it was a Halimeda Crab.

The Halimeda Crab (Huenia heraldica) is a species of Arrowhead Crab. This crab likes to decorate its body with the living leaves of the Halimeda algae. The crabs green body along with the algae attached to it makes it virtually impossible to spot.

This was by far the most interesting and rare find for a casual lunch break dive.

On the last day of July we decided to visit the southern outreef of the Ari atoll because we heard that whale sharks were spotted in the area. We started the two tank dive cruising the outreef with underwater scooters when fortune favored us with not just one but two whale sharks. We slowly approached the whale sharks not sure how he would react to the scooters, but to our surprise they were very calm and just swam slowly along the outreef. Because of our added propulsion we managed to stay with these gentle giants for half an hour and the experience was mind blowing.

On the way back after the dive we passed Dugura lagoon and spotted lots of mantas in the area. We decided to do our second dive there and had another unforgettable dive with the mantas.

What better way to go diving and we had a fantastic days diving with many memorable experiences. We hope that the whale sharks and mantas stay in the area so we can share this experience with more of our divers.

During the night of June 15th to the 16th, we were lucky enough to watch the first of two lunar eclipses in 2011.

Quite good weather conditions with just a few clouds and a small amount of surrounding light made the beach of Kuredu the perfect place to enjoy this spectacle of nature.

It was a relatively rare central lunar eclipse and with a total duration of almost 5h and 40 min – the longest and darkest since July 2000.

After it’s totality at around 1:30 am (Kuredu time) the full moon reappeared in a play of orange and red before finally disappearing in the early morning hours as always like nothing has ever happened.

Lately, one of our Instructors, Markus, was lucky to find during a morning dive trip a small frog fish on Aliha Giri. Paul, one of our repeater guests being on this trip, fortunately had his underwater camera with him and could take a picture as proof.

The last couple of times we were not able to find this little creature anymore. Hard to believe as this little fellow is shiny orange (Prodivers orange?) as you can see on the picture…

Thanks to the picture we know that Mr. Orange exists and we will do our best to find him again!

The 12th of May was one of those days, when the divers did not know where to look first during their dive on Orimas Thila in the Noon Atoll…

Already their first dive at Christmas Rock was full of action. The divers were welcomed by 2 stingrays sharing their resting place under an overhang with 2 whitetip reefsharks, and at the end of the dive they even spotted a sleeping nurse shark at the giri.

But this dive got clearly topped by Orimas Thila with plenty of Grey Reefsharks in all different sizes, ealge rays, batfish, barracuda and even a sleeping leopard shark. As if that wasn´t enough, suddenly our dive instructor Armin spotted a very special underwater creature. A Bowmouth-Guitarfish suddenly came cruising towards the north side of the reef before disappearing slowly into the deep. This creature can grow up to 2.4 meters and belongs to the family of rays, even though he has many features of the sharks. Luckily this encounter was captured on the video we are showing below, so that we all can enjoy watching this wonderful and rare sightning! Take a look on the top of the Bowmouth-Guitarfish, there you can see their defense system – sharp teeth!

As a relaxed finish for this wonderful day before returning to Kuredu the group did Easa Faru as the third and last dive, where the divers were blown away by all different kind of hard corals covering the reef!

Among lots of green turtles and leaf fish and many other creatures, there are also two ghost pipefish at the Kuredu Caves. Actually, they have been there for a while, but we still would like to remind you about their presence there.

Sitting at about 11m depth, in a Halimeda algae spot and sharing that one with a green Leaf fish, these two tiny creatures spend their time hovering head-down searching for small invertebrate prays to snap.

The bigger one is the female, which incubates the eggs between large ventral fins that form a pouch, … just in case you didn’t know…