scagrotto
Contributor
Maybe not all coral reefs, but they can be found throughout the tropics. Like so many other animals, if you move slowly and calmly they won't run and hide.Are [Christmas tree worms] distributed through all coral reefs?
As for beautiful things I've seen, the more I think about it the longer the list gets, though "beautiful" isn't the right word. Depending on what it was, interesting, unusual, and magical are probably the better descriptions. Just "beautiful" can be a dime a dozen.
I saw a filament blenny on my first trip to Roatan, and then needed help from the internet to identify it. That's because the Bay Islands is the only place they're known, and even there they're very rare. Rare enough that my edition of Humann's Reef Fish Identification doesn't list it. I gather that newer editions do or will:
Alert Diver | Hit List
On a dive in Palau (maybe Blue Corner, but I'd have to drag out old log entries) we saw a school of devil rays swim by. A friend got a (not so great) picture with 20 in it. IIRC it was a day or two after the dive pro had been out on our boat. He said he's been diving there for 12 years and never seen that himself, though he knew of several instances of it happening.
Also in Palau I managed to insinuate myself inside a fairly large school of fish during a drift dive. For perhaps 10 minutes I just drifted along with several dozen of them all around me.
In Yap (same trip) we watched from below as the waves broke over the reef with bright sunlight shining on them from behind.
A trip to Cayman Brac resulted in doing several dives and some surface interval snorkeling in the company of a wild porpoise that enjoyed the company of people. He pushed on my foot in an apparent effort to prevent me from descending. I also put my hand in his mouth to feel his teeth. Probably far better than paying for a canned dive with porpoises.
And that reminds me of yet another sight in Palau. Dozens of spinner dolphins jumping and playing in our wake as we were on our way to Peleliu for a day.