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What is a Dugong?
What is a Dugong – Abu Dabbab Bay, Egypt – Rutger Geerling
What is a Dugong? I am sure most people have never asked this question because they probably never knew that they existed. Well hopefully these beautiful images by Rutger have peeked your interest. A dugong is a close relative of the manatee that lives in tropical areas of the Pacific and Indian Ocean. They are vegetarians and typically feed on sea grasses in shallow bays. They are a bit more cautious of swimmers than manatees so they are not often photographed in their natural habitat. Please read Rutger’s story below to find out how he was able to find this elusive creature known as “Dennis”?
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Enter Rutger:
Knowing there is something to photograph but not being able to find can be rather frustrating, especially when you are underwater – limited by an annoying but finite thing as an air supply. Try to imagine a couple of football fields of sea grass and an underwater visibility of about 20 meters (60 feet) and you’ll understand it’s not easy to find a specific living animal, even it is as big as two grown up humans.
The “thing” I am talking about is “Dennis”, the famous resident sea cow (or Dugong, it’s one of the three members of the Manatee family) of the Abu Dabbab bay near Port Ghalib in the Marsa Alam region of Egypt.
Seeing these pictures you’ve probably guessed we found it but it took us two one-hour dives to actually find it. Sure, we did come across plenty of huge and approachable Turtles and a couple of large Stingrays but imagine being a the last stage of your dive because your tank is running empty and then spotting an enormous dust cloud – the telltale Dugong signature… However, there was no Dennis to match it.
Turned out he was right above us and while we were getting highly frustrated not seeing it, he was just getting a breath of fresh air. Our paths finally crossed when we decided to go up and finish the dive while he was going down to continue vacuuming the seafloor.
We squeezed a few last minutes at our ample air supply… not being deep made it a safe bet but most of us came up with nearly empty tanks, but a mind filled with awe!
The photo was taken with a Canon 20D in an underwater casing made by UK-Germany for this model. Attached was 1 Canon 540EX Strobe (also in an UK-Germany casing). Camera settings (manual): 400ISO, 1/200 sec. at f6.3 and ETTL flash.
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