Editor's Note
(click images for enlarged views)

his excellent five minute video by Ray Izumi depicts some of the amazing life forms found on muddy bottom at Milne Bay in Papua New Guinea and Lembeh Straits, Indonesia.  

Muck diving can be a quite special experience.  On reefs the profusion of life is a bit dazzling.  On the open sand and mud creatures are more scattered.  You have to search a bit to find them and when you do, you tend to look closely and for a time.  It's a much more focused and reflective experience.

Occasionally in such circumstances something very interesting happens.  You come across some truly amazing creature you have never seen or even heard of before.  Going back a few years it was not improbable you might well be the first human ever to see it.  Bizarre as it may be you are also struck by its beauty and by a strange sense of familiarity and deja vu, as if somehow, in some deep recess of one's own being, you did know about it all along.  It's a quite mystical feeling and a strong reminder that the wonder of life, consciousness, beauty and our own being still holds many mysteries.  Muck diving can indeed be interesting.  

Ribbon Octopus (frame from the video)

(Be sure to see this one full size)
Ray Izumi works as a network engineering consultant these days. In former lives he was a roofer, a rock climbing bum, and an analytical chemist. He now now lives in Redmond, Washington, near the murky waters of Puget Sound, where he dives frequently.

He got his open water certification in 1987, and has been an avid diver ever since. He was certified in Utah, and did his qualifying dives in a hot water spring in the desert near Wendover, Nevada, that was once used as a target for bombing practice by the Air Force. He eventually worked his way up to PADI Rescue Diver.

Since then he has lived and dived all over the world, yet has never seen an area he could say was more beautiful than the waters around Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. He says "Diving in these cold waters, of course, is not for everybody, but somehow you forget how darn cold you are when you see the overwhelming beauty of Barkley Sound. I must admit, though, that
given a choice, I'd choose Indonesia over Canada any day."

Website: http://home.sprynet.com/~izumirm/izumirm.htm
E-mail: izumirm@sprynet.com

Frogfish yawning (from the video frame)