Fantastic Blue Magic is Raja Ampat dive finale

Massive school of bigeye trevally; Blue Magic is often listed as the favorite Raja Ampat dive site of veteran divers so we did our last two dives here

Juvenile crocodilefish; it's interesting that the adults are camouflaged so they can surprise their prey yet the juveniles are black and stand out so much

I had never seen a sea cucumber walking until this one; notice the small black appendages which appeared to be working much like feet; I'm simplifying the action but the appearance was astounding

Bubble coral; the bubbles are grape-sized which increase their surface area according to the amount of light available: they are larger during the day, but smaller at night

Giant moray eel; Jakarta is supposedly the fastest sinking city in the world which is one reason a plan to relocate the capital to Kalimantan on the island of Borneo was developed last year

Blackfin barracuda; this was the only blackfin barracuda I saw; they supposedly can stay at the same site for months or years at a time

Here's another tasselled wobbegong that I swam right over and didn't notice; I'm not used to big creatures that are stationary and so well-camouflaged

The currents can be tricky with the Blue Magic dive so we did negative entries where you start immediately swimming down when entering the water; divers run the risk of getting caught in a current and missing the dive site

Phyllidia elegans nudibranch; there are huge reference books that have nothing but species of nudibranch; they are small but with such vivid colors that I can see why divers love them

I loved this photo because it looks like the map puffer is either chopped in half or half buried in the sand; of course, it's just an optical illusion due to the way the fish was swimming

Bumphead parrotfish; this guy was quite curious and swam right up to me which helped greatly in getting his photo; this vulnerable species can grow to 5 ft long

The bigeye trevally is commonly found in large slow moving schools during the day, becoming active at night when it feeds, taking a variety of fish, crustaceans, cephalopods and other invertebrates