On Saturday, after a hot morning climbing at Welly Dam with wonderful tree top views across a valley it was time to cool off. So we decided to head to the beach. It had been a mid-thirty to forty degree week and the sea had been flat as a pancake, so I was hoping to get in for a snorkel for the first time this summer. Lisa was also liking the idea of calm sea and as such took her paddleboard down, but she forgot the paddle so while I took the board down she went back home. By the time she got down Els and her friends had taken the board out for a bit of a play:
I dived into the water, bracing myself for the initial coldness but as they say once you are in its lovely… and it was. I swam out towards the reef and while the visibility wasn’t bad it wasn’t that crystal clear water I’d been hoping for. Still I stayed out checking the usual spots and seeing some familiar friends, such as the banded sweeps, goat fish, leather jackets, sea urchins and of course sea stars. Nothing unusual and due to the poor visibility I didn’t take any images. After a while my calves started to cramp up and so as I made my way back to find Lisa on her board:
It hadn’t taken her long to get her board back from the girls. She had been doing a bit of stand up paddle boarding up and down the beach. But when I was coming back in she was just loafing about and said there were some small fish round her. I had seen the fingerlings, as I first came in, so wasn’t too excited by her find. However I thought I better look interested so popped my head underwater to see what I might see. That was when to my amazement I found myself completely surrounded by herring, a fair bit bigger than the little fish Lisa had pointed out:
There would easily have been a thousand of them. I felt like I was in the eye of a hurricane as they circled round me, only they were also going underneath me. I didn’t want to scare them off so just sat there allowing them to circle round, getting so close that I felt like I could reach out and catch them. After watching and taking a few snaps and videos, I braved a duck dive. While they parted they were not spooked and continued to circle me and then swim overhead. From below, as the light streamed in from above, my experience was given a different contrast:
It is hard to tell how long they were round me, but it felt like a very long time. Eventually they decided to move on and I watched as they casually made their way along the beach slowly disappearing in the increasingly murky waters. While my first snorkel over the reef was not anything to shout about, yet again Peppy Beach gave me a new sight and one that made the dip very worthwhile. However, by now my calves were screaming. Um had I done too much climbing that morning… I was certainly paying the price now so it was really time to head in:
Back on the beach the girls had commandeered the paddle board and were splashing about, while Lisa plugged herself into a podcast. I’d had my fun on the beach, well in the water, and not being one to lounge about in the sun headed back home. Sunday the weather was due to still be hot, but it was going to cool down just a touch. I was hopeful to get out for another snorkel while the waters were relatively calm, but rumour had it that the south westerly winds would be picking up and with that so would the swell:
Next morning I had to be out of the house to take Els to dance rehearsals by 9am so it was get a quick early snorkel in or not bother. It was overcast, which is not a good sign. Still I went down and yep the winds had picked up bringing with it the swell, nothing huge but for Peppy enough to churn things up. Being hopefully I decided to jumped in regardless, but the visibility had dropped considerably. Hopefully better conditions return and stay for longer so I can see more than just some Gloiosaccion, literally translated to glue bags but commonly called slimy bags:
Sandbagged 