Last night Elseya’s mate from next door had a sleepover, and subsequently they were up till tale making movies and playing games. Lisa and I crashed by 10pm and left them to it. In the at 6am the green waste truck came by, I swear we could set out clocks by that truck. So by 6:30 with the Lisa and the girls still snoozing I was getting restless so headed to the beach for a snorkel. My thinking was that there was more chance of seeing fish early in the morning than midday, don’t ask me why but I had a hunch. I was kind of right but there were not that many more. This was the first encounter I had was a female Shaws Cowfish:
I then spied a Sand Gobbler making its way not surprisingly across the sand. These are also called Sea Cucumbers, and it is a bit tricky to identify but I’m going to guess it is a Thelenota anax. It is a small one at only 30cm long and they can get easily double that size:
The next find I knew would have me stumped, the last few sea stars I really struggled to identify and google simply has far too many. But I’ll guess it is a Fromia indica, no matter how many I see it always feels so special when I find them:
I came across a heap different fish and some of the bigger ones included Truncated Coralfish, Southern Goatfish and Banded Sweep, but they were all too shy and quick to get away before I could get close to them. I did however have a small school of Scad, which I watched as these feasted on Jellyfish. I think they may be Jack Mackeral (one of the many types of Scad) and they are one of the recreational fish that attracts fishers to Peppy. This morning a few people were out hoping for a catch:
There were also lots of little fish but they are so hard to capture in a photo probably more because I can’t hold my breathe long enough to allow them to get used to me floating next to them. Still I couldn’t resit including this blurry photo of some small Western Pomfred, only being an inch or so long:
There are spots there is a small reef along Peppy and in the nooks and crannies there are always things to be found, today it was the Strongylocentrotus purpuratus (Purple Sea Urchin). There distinctive pale spines is what gives them away, and I’m not sure if they find holes to live in our burrow into the reef, as each time the homes I find them in are a perfect fit:
As I was looking about something caught my eye and after diving down a few times I came across , for the first time, some Western Rock Lobsters. I came across three in all and was led to believe that you had to swim out 200m to get the outer reef to find these fells. Being a wuss I only ever go out about 20-30m, so was stoked to finally get to see these amazing creatures up close in their natural habitat:
By now I was getting cold and had to head back to shore, but not before a few more Jellyfish images. I have now worked out that these are part of the Ctenophores family and are probably Comb Jellies. It is great watching these guys and the little beads of light that move along the ridges is so sool to see. I tried and tried to get a good image of this and this was the best I got. It kind of captures it and now you just have to imagine these flicks of light travelling along the ridge while also changing colour:
One final image just because:
Elseya is keen to get out and snorkel with the Jellyfish so later this morning I’ll head back out but you are in luck as she will have the camera not me
Sandbagged 