Dear English-speaking readers, this page is an automatic Google translation from a post originally written in French. My apologies for the weird sentences and the funny mistakes that could have been generated during the process. If you can read French, click on the French flag below to access the original text:
Français That's it ! ! ! Finally ! I met him! Today in Crystal Bay. I'm happy, happy, happy! My new friend is called mola-mola, or moon fish.
Huge !
It is a big beast, really huge, in the two-three meter span, from one end to the other of each fin (upper and lower). A Baltic fish, so, and not too shy, despite the dozens of divers to turn around in a string of bubbles.
However, at the beginning of the dive, I am not very optimistic. We go along, as the previous times, the falling, right hand. A little surf, but the current is manageable. We'll wait a few minutes in the blue, where the reef becomes a wall. But nothing.
Good. U-turn, pulling edges, because of the surf.
I scan the reef, now to my left, looking for possible smaller bugs, to flash. Some common nudibranchs, the usual tropical fauna ... I still glances to the blue, right, just in case.
Mola-mola in sight!
And then the divers in front of me start to get excited, while the "ding-ding" sound of those who knock against their bottle.
No doubt, so much agitation means: "Mola-mola in sight! Wayan and Made, our dive-masters, turn to me, waving their hands, clenched fist, thumb and little finger tight. This is the sign for molas-molas. Peter, a German instructor who is my "buddy" since several dives widens his eyes in my direction. I understood well.
Except that, once again, I'm lagging behind. I accelerate my kicking pace, but the current is not in my favor. I palm, I palm, in vain, I do almost on the spot.
Wayan, who kindly mocked me on the boat at the time of the briefing, because I'm the only one to have missed the moonfish the day before, flip-flopped and lunge at me. He grabs my hand and palm like crazy to shoot me to the beast. With him, it propels! ! !
Here I am, I go down again in the 20 meters to be closer. I hardly believe my eyes. It's big, huge! ! ! We are dozens of divers to surround the poor beast.
It is a huge, more oval-shaped, round, living disk with a rounded, somewhat astonished eye, two huge and powerful fins above and below, and two very small ones on the sides.
Face to face
I switch on my camera, I shoot. No time for setting pictures. The pictures I put here are very blue, because they are taken from my videos. But no matter, it gives you an idea of the general look of the animal.
The mola-mola, who first presents me with his profile, accompanied by two little fish-drivers, suddenly turns towards me, looks me straight in the face, then continues his flight to go away in the blue, after me. have presented their other profile. I am in the front row. I scream for joy in my regulator.
The mola-mola dance video
At the landing, I squirm cheerfully, one hand on the head, the other under the buttocks, imitating the swimming mola-mola. The others are getting married in their regulator.
I take the pose with Made, then Wayan and Kimberly, a dive-master Californian, and Peter immortalizes us with his camera ... The video rendering of my little A95 is not fabulous, but it's nice memories anyway (thanks to Peter for the pictures where I see "dancing"):
Cuttlefish in the current
What a beautiful day ! During the first dive, in drift, at Pura Mas Gading, we also had the chance to cross a big placid cuttlefish. Despite a furious current, I clutched the reef and managed to pull the portrait out of him.
