All of our dives on Cocos featured hammerheads, most shy and in the distance like here. One of my best memories from Cocos was the ascent on a site called Manuelita, which we dove many times. What we didn't realize at first was that the hammerheads had disperged and moved away when we got there. Immediately when we started to ascend they returned. During our safety stop we saw the hoards coming from all directions and reuniting at the cleaning stations on the ocean floor.

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Scalloped Hammerhead Shark

Participating in a huge feeding aggregation, the massive amount of anthias make some of the visually dramatic scenes on the reef. Anthias live in harems consisting of one dominant male, a few lesser males, juveniles and a cluster of females. All anthias are hermaphrodites and begin life as female.

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Elphinstone Anthias

Sponges are popular food source for nudibranchs. The slugs incorporate the color from what they eat to their tissue color as camouflage. This beautiful pair have found a toxic finger-sponge (Negombata magnifica) to feed on. They won't be harmed, and instead use the chemicals to reduce the chance of being eaten.