On Elseya’s second day of the dance workshop we had already decided to head out for a snorkel somewhere. We aimed to head back to Castle Rock where we had gone a week or so before but didn’t manage much time in the water due to the shark alert. Our local Peppy Beach was flat as a pancake but at Castle Rock it was rough again, so we headed to Yallingup instead:
There is a pool which is protected from waves by a rocky bar and the place is a marine sanctuary, so in theory it was promising. We had never been here before on account of it being a very busy place. If you look closely in the image above and below you can see hordes of people on the beach in the background, all congregated at the southern end of the beach which is where it is most protected. We were however lucky and no one was not snorkelling so we had the place to ourselves:
Lisa was not so sure about going in yet, so I went first to check it out. The tide was very low and it looked very shallow, and as I worked my way out the first thing that hit me was the amount of seaweed, the colours were beautiful a very big change from the white sand of our local peppy Beach:
The first fish I was greeted with was a shoal of Western Pomfred, they yellow fins and tails merging in pretty well with the sea weed but they big black eye stood out really well. It was certainly deep enough to snorkel in but it was a bit hard to duck dive down to get in amongst the fish:
As I searched amongst the weed and various crevices I found so many fish but they were quick to hide and not being able to duck dive made it hard to get up close to them. A few did however creep out for a bit longer, and this is one of the nicer images I got. I’ve gone through our fish book and tried to identify the species and thin it may be a Tarwhine. I’m hoping our marine biologist friends Mikey and Helen reply this email and let me know if I am right:
There was one open sandy area that was deeper and in this there were hundreds of fish milling about and it felt like a huge aquarium. A couple of species I’ve identified are the Western Pomfred and Southern Silver Drummer but there are many others both in this image and not that I have not. There are simply too many species of fish in the sea(!):
While the place was alive with fish and exploding with colour from the weed, I did notice that there were a great many old shells. They looked to me like shell graveyards, with some sizable Campanilidae (the cone shaped ones) and Ninella whitleyi (the shorter stubby ones) shells:
I was starting to get cold but Lisa had decided not to miss out on the fun so was just about to join me. So we stayed out for a while longer and she too was mightily impressed with all the fish, not that this image shows many:
I kept heading into the shallower waters and found a big shoal of Old Wives, with a few Zebra Fish thrown in. These were by far my favourite fish of the snorkel, and I did first think they may have been Schooling Bannerfish but looking them up the distinct yellow eyes (as well as a few other features) gave them away:
Soon we were on our way out and I was shaking, I think next time a wetsuit may be a good. We had driven down in Lofty, and a trip in the camper makes even the shortest of trips feel like a holiday. The great thing is that we can quite literally bring the kitchen sink with us and so we made a well-deserved hot chocolate for me and coffee for Lisa:
As we supped our brews and warmed up both from the inside and outside we strolled along the rocks to watch the gentle waves and admire the coastline. That is code for Lisa finding the perfect rock armchair and me rock hoping about to see what I might find:
I was not to be disappointed and after much wandering about checking out rock pools I stumbled across this beautiful sea star. I’ve tried to find out which one this is and the best I can come up with is a possible a species of Fromia, but most of the ones I’ve found are either red’ish all over or more white spots on red. But after spending over an hour and half pouring over our fish and coral reef books and the website to write this email I give up. If Mikey and Helen can once again help me out that would be great!
Hope you are all keeping an eye out for all the hidden treasurers out there,
Sandbagged 