Underwater creatures around Tunku Abdul Rahman Park, Kota Kinabalu

by drizad on November 14, 2008

It’s just not right.

I don’t think I do justice to the wonderful underwater creatures when I do not share them with you. My last few post about my Open Water course was only about me. No photos of them.

So now I would love to share the things I saw underwater, so that you will know how beautiful life is down there. Oh, have I mentioned that it’s just 20 minutes away from where I live?

Kudos to Roslan, the aspiring underwater photographer who took all the shots. I saw all the creatures in this page.

You may have seen them unedited in my Facebook photo album, but these 15 photos were edited & cropped professionally with GIMP. All photos were taken with Canon Powershot A95 with underwater casing. I auto-leveled all the photos to eliminate the blue-green component of the photo, so that it will shown with it’s original colours.

I learned a lot every time I went down there. And I think you should too. Enjoy!

Barracudas around Pyramid Reef.

Barrel sponge coral eaten by turtles. Can you see the white patch?

Healed part of the sponge (top) and just bitten (below) by turtles.

Coral reef around Sulug Island.

Giant Clam around Sulug Reef.

Hermit crab in Mamutik reef.

Unidentified school of fish around Pyramid Reef.

Is it a grouper?

Tube worm at Pyramid Reef.

Anemone fish (aka Nemo).

Nudibranch @ Sulug Reef.

Full blown puffer fish. Not my hand...

Scorpion fish at Sulug Reef.

Snake eel @ Mamutik Reef.

Barrel sponge - again - badly damaged by turtles.

I must admit that those photos are only less than 5% of what I saw underwater…

Amazing Animals Video: UnderWater Animals

Tagged as: tunku abdul rahman park, underwater

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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Rinn 11.14.08 at 10:54 pm: Yeaah…..such a wonderful scenery…..very fantastic creatures, awesome, superb, unbelievable, what’s more can i say to express my feeling….Itulah KEBESARANNYA!
2 Ditch Townsend 12.21.08 at 5:04 pm: So glad you’re getting into diving in TARP.
The fishes you saw were: 1) Barracuda photo not good enough to be certain, 7) Pempheris vanicolensis (Vanikoro Sweeper shoal), 9) Plectorhinchus chaetodonoides (Many-spotted Sweetlips Transitional Juvenile-Adult), 11) Premnas biaculeatus (Spinecheek Anemonefish), 13) Cyclichthys orbicularis (Orbicular Burrfish) – disappointed to see it swollen which indicates extreme stress from being held, 14) Scorpaenopsis (uncertain species: Scorpionfish), 15) Ophichthus melanochir (Black-finned Snake eel). Via my website (http://sites.google.com/site/tarpwatch/Home) you can attempt your own identifications in future (420 colour morphs of 385 species in TARP).
Good luck!
Ditch
3 drizad 12.22.08 at 9:06 am: @ Ditch Townsend:

Thanks for the information and heads up. Yeah, I know we are not supposed to touch anything while diving, but then again, it’s the reality. So far, I never touch anything while having fun in TARP…
And thank you for the link to your website. A very nice website indeed. I learned a lot about the fishes around here!
p/s: Hope to see whale sharks around…