Cuttlefish Mating At Palong Bay, Phi Phi Islands, Thailand

Posted on December 20th, 2007.

Witnessed some hot cephalopod action recently while on a liveaboard around Thailand’s Phi Phi islands - a group of three cuttlefish that were completely unphased by my camera

At the beginning of December I did a two day liveaboard from Koh Lanta around the Phi Phi Islands and out to Shark Point and Anemone Reef. The liveaboard is one of the boats we represent through AmazingLanta.com, and so I made a quick video tour and took lots of pix of the boat itself to give a better idea to future guests as to what it looks like.

Anyway, we arrived at Palong Bay, one of the Phi Phi dive sites, and my dive buddy Liam suggested we go in for a dusk dive on our own rather than waiting for a night dive proper. Liam had worked for a couple of seasons on Phi Phi and so knew the site well and was hoping we’d get to see blacktip sharks, as dusk is their feeding time.

We didn’t have any luck with the sharks, but right at the end of the dive as we were about to start our safety stop, I saw three cuttlefish wrapping themselves around each other. I’ve never seen this behaviour from cuttlefish before, and the electric blue colour of their frills in the glare of my strobe was absolutely beautiful. (I have seen cuttlefish face stretching, but that’s a different story). The cuttlefish were aware we were there, but unabashed by our presence - they barely backed away from us, so intent were they on mating. It was a truly great end to a dive and definitely makes me want to do more dusk dives.

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