East Timor: Mama and baby dugong

[calypsonick]

Bad photo but rare sight

 

[Vie]

Very, very nice shot.

 

[Mike Veitch]

Dude, i hate you!!!!!!

Great capture, must have been magic...

 

[ssra30]

Cool. How skittish were they? I heard that they are incredibly shy and pretty much impossible to approach close enough for a decent pictures.

 

[justleesa]

Lucky moment Nick, thanks for sharing

 

[SeaYoda]

Great capture!

 

[calypsonick]

Cool. How skittish were they? I heard that they are incredibly shy and pretty much impossible to approach close enough for a decent pictures.

Dugongs are pretty shy with the exception of one reported sighting here where the individual came up three times to a group of divers in a playful manner.

This last sighting was first from shore. My wife and I were gearing up for our dive, talking to two local spear fishermen about, believe it or not, dugongs. I was confirming with them that they do not hunt dugongs here because they are considered sacred, when my wife shouted "dugong". My wife has this uncanny ability to spot surfacing marine mammals at no matter what distance.

The dugongs in this case were only about 80m from shore in 3m deep water. We waited for them to surface another time and saw that it was a parent and a baby. I knew that if we tried to SCUBA towards them we would never find them because the surf has kicked up a bit and viz was not so good. So, I grabbed only my camera and snorkel gear and ran down the beach a ways in the direction they seemed to be travelling. I asked my wife to point to where she sees them surface next to help me triangulate their position. With that, I swam towards their last surface area and bingo there they were, swimming under me. There were three, one very large adult and the mama and baby. It was about when I got that first picture, that they noticed me and zoomed off with lightning speed. I tried to follow but no way!

 

[Floridawannabe]

Cool picture and I am sure how hard you had to wark for it, it was well worth it.