​The cuttlefish is actually not a fish at all! Together with the Octopus, Squids or Nautilus, they are invertebrate animals belonging to the Cephalopod family. Not to be confused with the Squid, which lives in the open water, the cuttlefish is a resident on a coral reef.

Are cuttlefish dangerous ? 

Cuttlefish are totally harmless to Humans and usually quite inquisitive and friendly. Not common in Thailand, the Flamboyant cuttlefish (Metasepia Pfefferi), is the only poisonous cuttlefish. But they do not sting or bite so you would have to eat it to endanger yourself...
​When they hunt or seek to attract a breeding partner, they live up to their name and their skin takes on the colours of a flame testifying of their toxicity.

​The most common cuttlefish we encounter when diving in the Andaman sea are Pharaoh cuttlefish (Sepia pharaonis) an inquisitive dive buddy!

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And fee free to read some more fun facts about the Andaman Sea inhabitants on our blog !

Hello everyone, as some of you might know, we went to Koh Lipe on a scouting mission to prepare our Southern Andaman itineraries for next season…
 
First, the island is beautiful! Surrounded by emerald water and the rows of long-tail boats it is a beautiful Thai postcard worthy sight from the sea.

But we didn’t go there to check the island itself but the underwater world around it…. and we were not disappointed! Koh Lipe delivered some great dives over the week we spent there.

The underwater landscape is very diverse with Pinnacles, flat coral gardens, walls and muck dives there is a bit for everyone!
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We started with a famous dive site in Tarutao National Park called “Stonehenge”. A simple coral garden shaped like a dome with stunning granite blocks standing here and there covered in bright colourful soft corals.

The scenery is breath taking! The blue water on top is teaming with schooling fish, yellowback snappers, trevallies and barracudas and if your eyes are on the reef, you will find seahorses, bent stick pipefish, moray eels and a large array of damselfish. It is always worth it to go for a little tour over the sandy area to find some spearing mantis shrimps and flounders and the special find was two seamoths…! We have heard that the dive site is also regularly visited by whale sharks but no luck for us this time…

The following day, we went to a place called “Taru”. The dive site is a slopping coral garden bordered by a sandy area, the highlight of our week was there with the encounter with a magnificent Rhinopias!

Belonging to the scorpion fish family, Rhinopias are rare and on every underwater photographer’s list!
The second day, we visited another famous dive site called “8 Miles rock” because it is 8 miles south of Koh Lipe. The top of this pinnacle sit at 15 M and goes down all the way to 40m plus… 

The dive site is surrounded by thousands of silversides glassfish that the giant trevallies are feeding on which creates a lot of hunting action. At the bottom we found a massive school of red snappers as well as some marble rays. The reef is covered in soft corals, anemones and huge barrel sponges.  "8 miles" is another good place to see whale sharks, but no luck for us this week, we did find a pretty frogfish when we finally stopped looking at the giant trevallies dancing in the blue.

On the third day, we set to try the Koh Lipe’s muck dives at “honeycomb bay”. It starts very shallow, a few meters away from the beach and then sloops down to 20 m plus, but we spent most of the dive around 15m with plenty of nudis, shrimps, a grumpy snake eel, up to 6 frogfishes of various colours and ended the dive with 3 Indian Walkmans; there is plenty to see for the critters lovers.

Another nice muck dive is call “waterfall”, that one is literally loaded with nudibranchs like "Shaun the sheep", "ornate stiliger" and there are also cauliflower soft coral hiding the elusive candy crab!

“Steps” named after its shape is also not to be missed to see frogfishes, we saw up to 6 seahorses there, as well as sleepy cat-sharks and catfish hiding in the reef along with colourful nudis and moray eels.

On a different day, we found a baby tigertail seahorse, crocodile flat head fish, nudibranchs and shrimps along with schooling snappers (I tried some motion blur there)

We are looking forward to go back to the area with you on MV Smiling Seahorse for a full on experience starting from Ranong and ending in Phuket. We will get to dive all of the best dive sites of the Andaman Sea from Richelieu Rock to Koh Lipe passing 4 infamous marine national parks. We will start with Surin Islands and Richelieu rock , Similan Islands with Koh Tachai and Koh Bon, Koh Lanta national park with Hin Daeng, Hin Mueang and end in Taruatao National park on this one of a kind 8 days trip.
Join us from 3rd to 10th of December 2021 or 18th to 25th of December!
​Mention this blog post and get a FREE Black Water dive!

This slightly crazy idea was born from an observation as sad as it is known: the seas and oceans are infested with plastic waste. This waste is reduced to fragments that have terrifying consequences for the environment, especially for the marine animals that swallow it. These often die of suffocation by residues invisible to the naked eye.

The Manta is the first offshore vessel capable of collecting and processing in continuous flow large quantities of plastic macro-waste floating on the surface of the oceans, while carrying out scientific missions and carrying out actions to raise public awareness and promote the circular economy.
​A conveyor belt located under the boat sucks up waste. Inside, a team of operators will separate the waste from organic matter, which will return into the sea. The Manta will also be equipped with a crane at the rear to collect the drifting nets, as well as a pyrolysis system that transforms non-recyclable waste into fuel. The recyclable waste collected will be compacted into 1m3 blocks. A single boat can hold 600 blocks, or 250 tonnes of waste, which will be brought to land for recycling.
Its designer, the Swiss sailor Yvan Bourgnon wants to build a fleet of around 100 boats to optimise operational efficiency.

The energy autonomy of the Manta is optimised by concentrating many innovative technologies for the production of energy from renewable sources while limiting its overall carbon footprint through sails.

The electricity necessary to power the rigs and electric motors will be supplied by conventional generators as well a waste to energy conversion turbines, wind turbines, hydro-generators and photovoltaic solar panels.

The Manta is the very first macro-waste collector vessel of its kind. A consortium of companies from different sectors shapes the projectin collaboration with The Sea Cleaners association, created in 2016.
Construction of the Manta is expected to begin in 2022. Project budget: 35 million euros. More than a third has already been gathered, from private patrons. Wind turbines, solar panels, tidal turbines… This large catamaran will embark and showcase various renewable energies. After a first year in Europe, in the Mediterranean, he will head to South-East Asia, mainly, "where twelve countries" represent "70% of plastic pollution in the oceans".
The Manta should begin to crisscross seas and oceans in 2024...

Whale sharks are the biggest fish in the oceans, their size implies slow growth rates and great longevity. Male Whale sharks reach sexual maturity in around 30 years (their adult size is rarely bigger than 8 meters). Females get much bigger but it takes them 50 years to be ready to conceive. 

While they could live up to 100 or 150 years old and mother a few hundreds pups, this late development implies slower potential population renewal as most whale sharks will not live long enough to have a descendant. 
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They have to steer clear of a lot of threats such as fishing nets...before they get a chance to breed.

Whale sharks are ovoviviparous and this is known thanks to a single pregnant female caught in nets in 1995 (nicknamed "big Mamma" ) containing 300 embryos in her utero at various stages of development. Some were still in their eggs, others already hatched, the biggest was 64 cm long.

Where whale sharks go to give birth is still a mystery, it is believed that whale sharks are born between 40 – 70cm but surprisingly no diver has ever seen a whale shark under 2m longs and it is still unknown where they spend their time before reaching this size. 

​As it is one of the few places they can still hide in… it is believed that baby whale sharks are born in very deep water and spend the first years of their lives at depth.

Watch a baby whale shark swimming off in this video:

Nowadays, there are more than 3000 species of nudibranchs. The diversity of possible color combinations and patterns is impressive. They are all unique in their own way and are the delight of underwater photographers who are always delighted to find these mysterious and beautiful species.

Nudibranchs should make the most of their short lives. Indeed, while most nudibranchs live only a few weeks, the luckiest species rarely live up to over a year.

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Green turtles and Hawksbill turtles are the most commonly encountered in the Andaman Sea.
​The green turtle is one of the largest sea turtles and weight on average 80 to 130 kg. Its carapace, made of fused ribs, measures on average 115 cm, but the largest ones can reach a weight of 300 kg for a carapace length of 1,5 m.
Sea turtles are cold blooded animals, belonging to the classification of reptiles, just like snakes, crocodiles or dinausaures!

       - recognize their carapace - 

Babies hatch after a 6 to 7 weeks incubation and have the fend for themselves without ever meeting their parents. Only one in a thousand will reach adulthood.​

3 Green turtles Fun facts for the road!
1- the sex of the turtle comes from the temperature of the nest. Warmer nest will give more female hatchlings, colder nest will deliver more males! 
2- Scientists have demonstrated in lab generated magnetic fields that sea turtles have the ability to detect the Earth's magnetic field and use it as an orientation cue.
3- Green Turtles can cry! Crying doesn't happen when they are sad but help them to clear their eyes from salt build-ups.

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​Read more fun facts about our Ocean's inhabitants!

The most common confusion among divers concerns the Leopard Shark, very often confused with the Zebra Shark, which is frequently encountered when diving in tropical areas.

Both species have the particularity, in adulthood, of sporting a spotted coat like the African leopard.
However, the two species are biologically different and very easily differentiable.
 
On the left, the Zebra Shark is born with "zebra lines" which change into leopard-like-spots when they reach adulthood. Their Cylindrical body measure from 50cm at birth to 3.50 m when fully grown with prominent ridges along the flanks. Upped lobe of the caudal fin is very long.
 
On the right, the Leopard Shark has a unique spotted gray-dress an can measure up to 1.80m, so it is a bit smaller than its congener the Zebra Shark. It lives in the cold to temperate waters bordering the United States, from the Gulf of Mexico to Oregon. Its favorite areas of evolution are the turbid, shallow and rough areas of the seaside, the sandy bottoms and the rocky substrates of the kelp forests.
This lovely little shark is probably the reason why American divers call Stegostoma tigrinum "zebra shark" but the rest of the world (diving warmer water and hence never in touch with the triakis semifasciata) just call them "Leopard shark"...

So what does Zebra Shark (or false leopard shark) look like when they are younger?
Rarely photographed in the wild, Zebra sharks look black with white zebra marking at birth and develop their "leopard" patterns after a few weeks.

The Zebra Shark can be found in the shallow waters all around the Indian Ocean and West Pacific from South Africa to the Red Sea, from India to North Australia and from china to New Caledonia and Southern Japan. They usually hang out on sandy batches near coral reef where they can find their food.

The Zebra Shark is known for its foraging habits; it feeds and moves mostly at night, foraging for crabs, sea urchins, small fish, snails, and other invertebrates hiding in holes and crevices. They have great whisker-like organs (barbels, in front of their snout, helping them seek out their prey). They are also equipped with smallmouth and strong gill muscles to snatch up prey but are not as strong as active fish hunter as many other sharks. They prefer to rest on the ocean floor during the daytime, where they can breathe and pump water through their gills while remaining motionless. When there are strong water currents, they might seem to be surfing as they adjust their fins to stay motionless in the open water.

Stegostoma tigrinum usually live a solitary life and only seek each other during the mating seasons. During courtship, the male Zebra Shark will follow the female, bite vigorously at her pectoral fin and tails, with occasions where he holds her fins down. These usually happen at the bottom, and a long time before, the male curls its body around the female’s and joins his claspers with her cloaca. The mating usually lasts about five minutes. Females lay about four eggs at a time, but some studies show they can lay up to 46 eggs over 112 days. The egg cases are usually between brown and dark purple, with fine hairs around, helping them stay anchored or secured when developing. Eggs may hatch in between four to six months.

We hope you liked this blogpost and found the information you were looking for. Check out our Marine life section for more fun facts about Andaman Sea life! 
​What else do you know about leopard sharks? share in the comment section below!