Whale shark!

[Bowmouth]

Whats better than seeing a whaleshark?

To see three of them together with a bunch of manta rays as well! This happened to me at Black Rock (Mergui Archipelago/Myanmar) a few years ago...

 

[katdiver]

Go off some people, can't you............

I remember we only had to go snorkeling off the beach in arabia around Xmas time to bump into manta rays on a regular basis. I had 2 of them playing in my bubbles on OW4 during my training, but I had to wait until this year to see my first whale sharks and that was here in Thailand.

 

[TimA]

I Love Whalesharks...everytime I see one I want to give it a big hug....but of course you can't.
I did see a school of about 300 trevally with some Scribbed filefish mixed in at Black Rock...an amazing spectacle...but no whalesharks.

 

[Bowmouth]

I did see a school of about 300 trevally with some Scribbed filefish mixed in at Black Rock...an amazing spectacle...but no whalesharks.

Well don't feel too bad about not seeing a whaleshark at Black Rock. I've dived Black Rock a lot of times over the years but only on a few dives seen whalesharks there.
Schooling jacks though are nearly always there and I'm sure you must have seen the schools of tallfin batfish, rainbow runners and chevron and pickhandle barracudas as well.
And, if you had your nose in the reef, you probably also saw the giant/fimbriated/zebra/white eye/yellow margin/snow flake and white mouth moray eels, mating octopi, smashing and spearing mantis shrimps, tiger/arabic and other cowrie shells, golden wentel trap snails feeding on the cup coral, painted spiny lobsters, banded sea kraits, harlequin shrimps, giant hawk fish, fried egg nudibranchs (chromodoris annulata), swimming nudibranchs (bornella anquilla), the cup coral eating phestilla melanobrachia (orange and green variation), mating cuttle fish, juv. emperor angel fish, schools of squid, spindle cowries, porcelain crabs, flasher wrasse, true stone fish, devil scorpion fish, (tons of) bearded scorpion fish, longsnout pipe fish, flat worms and... and... and...

 

[mislav]

...mating octopi...

Octopuses, not octopi.

 

[limbo]

Well don't feel too bad about not seeing a whaleshark at Black Rock. I've dived Black Rock a lot of times over the years but only on a few dives seen whalesharks there.
Schooling jacks though are nearly always there and I'm sure you must have seen the schools of tallfin batfish, rainbow runners and chevron and pickhandle barracudas as well.
And, if you had your nose in the reef, you probably also saw the giant/fimbriated/zebra/white eye/yellow margin/snow flake and white mouth moray eels, mating octopi, smashing and spearing mantis shrimps, tiger/arabic and other cowrie shells, golden wentel trap snails feeding on the cup coral, painted spiny lobsters, banded sea kraits, harlequin shrimps, giant hawk fish, fried egg nudibranchs (chromodoris annulata), swimming nudibranchs (bornella anquilla), the cup coral eating phestilla melanobrachia (orange and green variation), mating cuttle fish, juv. emperor angel fish, schools of squid, spindle cowries, porcelain crabs, flasher wrasse, true stone fish, devil scorpion fish, (tons of) bearded scorpion fish, longsnout pipe fish, flat worms and... and... and...

Wow, all in one dive?

 

[Bowmouth]

Octopuses, not octopi.

It's a tricky one.

From Wikipedia;


Octopus
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Cephalopoda
Subclass: Coleoidea
Superorder: Octopodiformes
Order: Octopoda
Leach, 1818
Suborders

†Pohlsepia (incertae sedis)
†Proteroctopus (incertae sedis)
†Palaeoctopus (incertae sedis)
Cirrina
Incirrina
Synonyms

* Octopoida
Leach, 1817

The octopus (pronounced /ˈɒktəpəs/, from Greek Ὀκτώπους, 'eight-footed',[1] with plural forms: octopuses [ˈɒktəpʊsɪz], octopi [ˈɒktəpaɪ], or octopodes [ˌɒkˈtəʊpədiːz], see below) is a cephalopod of the order Octopoda that inhabits many diverse regions of the ocean, especially coral reefs. The term may also refer to only those creatures in the genus Octopus. In the larger sense, there are around 300 recognized octopus species, which is over one-third of the total number of known cephalopod species.


Yet another online dictionary:

Noun: octopus (octopuses,octopi) óktupus

1. Tentacles of octopus prepared as food

2. Bottom-living cephalopod having a soft oval body with eight long tentacles
- devilfish

Derived forms: octopuses, octopi

 

[Bowmouth]

Wow, all in one dive?

Only if you have a REALLY good guide and if you are REALLY good with your air!

 

[MartinNorway78]

u are very lucky.. i have dived chumpon serveral times over 2 years and never seen one... 10 dives?? very luck, indeed!

 

[TimA]

Anyways I saw many Octopi at Black Rock. If I remember though they weren't making more octopuses...but so many Jacks!! How were they able to survive the onslaught of Burmese fisherman. Needless to say I didn't mention it to the Thai staff or the obligatory Burmese who were fishing every free moment they could get. But with or without the whaleshark Black Rk's was a interesting dive.