Clown Nemo. You want to meet him?

• flymeto
• Jul 24, 2019
• 5 min read

The famous orange Nemo fish doesn’t live in Hollywood like most movie stars. She would literally feel like a fish there. He is hiding from reporters and fame in anemones of tropical waters of the Pacific and Indian Ocean. It also occurs in Northern Australia, Southeast Asia and Japan. But it would be very difficult to find her in such a territory just for blind. So pack your diving equipment and head straight to Papua New Guinea’s capital and from there by boat about 200 km south to the Eastern Fields. You can reach him at this address for sure.

Clowns who are funny even without red noses

The main character of the Pixar animator lives under the civil name of the clown-eyed clown, in Latin Amphiprion ocellaris. Its mark is three stripes. He wore them before Adidas had appropriated them. But not all clowns are subject to this distinctive fashion. There are up to thirty known species of the Amphiprioninae family that have reached similarly fading colors and patterns to best match the place of residence. In Eastern Fields there is quite a good concentration, you usually meet up to ten of them.

As you know, the clown lives in symbiosis with anemones. These sea predators usually stun every fish that enters between their tentacles, without mercy stinging with incandescent cells and digesting at rest. Not a clown. This is protected from attack by a layer of special slime. Did you know, however, that he is not born with this immunity, but is very carefully gaining it by gradually converging with the anemone? It is so. He then lives in mutual satisfaction with the domesticated anemone. The clown oxygenates and cleans her, and she provides him with a safe home that the fish is not going to give up at any cost.

Sasanka, clown and clown

To avoid having to pull the heels out of the house, they even developed the ability to change sex. In anemone, the main word is the female. Given that all clowns are born as males, it would seem to be a very hopeless situation after her death. Fortunately, the widowed clown has a solution - he waits for the younger clown, takes him as a roommate, and posrivuje his dominance by turning into a full-fledged female. The family will thus be preserved without lengthy courtship and partner selection.

Sea of fish in the Coral Sea

The sea around Papua New Guinea is dotted with islands and atolls. They are about six hundred and are surrounded by healthy and completely undamaged coral reefs. Wherever you look below the surface, it will suddenly find itself in its most exuberant diving fantasies. The clowns that lured you here range from one to fifteen meters. Once you understand what you can see, you’re sure to go deeper into your surveys. The diversity of both the macro and the big fish will make you dazed that you will not know which sea creature to focus on before. If you go with friends, believe that captured photos that you proudly pull to dry land will never capture the same.

The place to get euphoric fish fever is called Eastern Fields. Only about 50 divers show up here every year, preferably from November to April. The field spans about 150 square kilometers and its outer walls are riddled with passages, tunnels, vaults and other openings through which more and more tidal water flows daily with food for the inhabitants of the reefs. Local unique are dwarf hobbies, mandarin spindles, scorpionfish or octopus. You can see barracudas, horse mackerel and rainbow, various types of snappers and clips, invertebrates of all shapes and colors, sea snakes and turtles, manta and sharks. From time to time you can even meet killer whales or small whales.

You won’t see fish for the same fish

You can reach the charming place after a 10-hour cruise from Port Moresby. The Golden Down with Captain Craig at the helm is proven and in high demand. He will gladly take you through tens of larger and hundreds of smaller diving spots in Eastern Fields, depending on what you will like. It will never disappoint, for example, Carl’s Ultimate or Point P. If sharks are taking you, take a course towards Ashmore Reef, where their bright smiles just swarm. This area is under the protection of the Australian patrol, which ensures that the poachers do not distort sharks or fin. You will meet here silver sharks and reef sharks, shallows, hammerheads and divers boast with photos of tiger sharks or wobegonga.

The ghostly and surprisingly friendly mantas are willing to pose for you at their Mantchoria Pass cleaning station. Another interesting site called Finger is just a half-hour cruise from Port Moresby. The coral reef begins less than 5 meters below the surface and sinks to breathtaking depths. On the high seas just behind the main barrier is Suzie’s Bommie, a tall coral tower whose tip hosts grunts, the lower levels of the aquarius are smooth, and somewhere in between, cute pidicons await you. You’ll see these dwarves in a system of eight pinnacles called Pumpkin Patch.

What is true of many endemic species for underwater life also applies to Papua land. When you are soaked in the fauna, catch a word with one of the ten species of tree kangaroos or original trunks. If you have seen something in the sea that you have not yet, you should indulge the Papuans the same. Some of the forest tribes have never met a white man.