thousands of schooling glassies. The kingfish regroup as they head towards the surface and then return for another assault. Below the corals a lazy scorpionfish is on high alert – seizing glassies straying in his direction. Excited by the action, a coral rockcod rushes in to take a few gulps of the glassies which are now herding together. In the shallows a sandy


slope is pitted with tunnels, home to the grumpy looking jawfish and timid garden eels. Putu beckons us to a large coral bommie. He points to a darkly coloured crinoid. One of the arms appears to be detached and is swimming freely. We scrutinise it more closely and find that it is a juvenile male harlequin ghostpipefish. Putu tings loudly on his cylinder with his pointer. Irritated, we turn to see why he is making a noise. He has found another two male pipefish hiding within a small sea fan. Fascinated


by these rare fish swimming vertically, mimicking the crinoids, we settle down to take photographs. Putu tings again. We both look up to see what he has found this time. He proudly points out another male and a large female. I am astonished – five harlequin ghostpipefish on just one coral bommie! As we wait for the male and female to pose perfectly for a photograph, Putu tings again. I swim over to investigate, but I am disgusted to find he is calling us for a common nudibranch on a sponge. From thereon we ignore his tings.


In between dives we


relax on Menjangan Island. The Hindu devotees are placing offerings of fruit and incense at one of the five temples on the island; the snorkelers are floating in the water at the end of the jetty and a wild deer grazes a few metres from sun worshippers. The atmosphere is very


The serenity is broken by a school of blue-fin kingfish speeding past us


relaxed. Putu calls us for a dive on Coral Gardens on the


west of the island. We swim a short way along a wall until


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