Over the last week and bit I have had a few dips in our local waters and found a few gems. I’ve been a bit busy and also had a few days away climbing so thought I would provide you with a short but worthy collection of the best sights. And what better way to kick off the proceedings than with a real star, an orange mosaic sea star. Now for those who really do read these emails in the last one I call a similar looking sea star a biscuit sea star, it seems those common names are interchangeable (although it depends on who you ask) but who cares this one was a beauty:
I spied quite a few of them on this particular day and what I noted more than before was the spilt at the end of their arms, it almost looks like a mouth and from it protrude searching almost translucent tentacles. The tube like feet on the underside of the sea star are used for both movement and getting food to its mouth, while I understand that the ones at the end of the arms are like noses that respond to physical or chemical stimuli and help the sea star find food. I’ve yet to figure out what the mouth like opening and small hole on top of each arm is for:
I’ve had fun looking through the kelp. I’ve learnt to spend my time staying still and occasionally duck diving and creeping up on these patches. Sometimes I find small creatures while other times I don’t need to duck dive as some fish just sit there and watch my every move, such as this Brown Spotted Wrasse. Like the sea star this one also goes by several common names including an Orange Spotted Wrasse. There are not many dives that I don’t see these guys and something I didn’t know was that they change sex from female to male during their life:
Another common find is the Western Striped Cardinal Fish, it lurks in amongst the weed and nooks and crannies of the limestone reef. I usually find these small fish by themselves, they don’t seem to be in shoals and they are very skittish and quick to dart for cover. That said it doesn’t take them too long to become brave again and they poke their head out to see if I am still about. I need to sneak up on them if I really want to have a good look, and on this occasion managed to get not a bad shot before my lungs needed air:
Now while this image seems a little murky I simply had to include it, I spied the pencil sea urchin as the weed swayed gently back and forth. Then popping down for a closer inspection and sneaky image I managed to take the snap just as a McCulloch’s Scalyfin popped it’s head out of the little cave. These fish and very striking with their fluorescent blue dotted lines, and are one of the damselfish. The fluorescent colours indicate that this is a juvenile, as the adults loose the striking visual effects and become mostly black:
We have had an early and hot start to summer. Plenty of still balmy mornings with the mercury already in the mind twenties by 8 or 9 and not a breeze to be felt. The ocean is perfectly flat in these conditions but unfortunately I’m either travelling to or already at work, and by the time I’m back home the wind has usually come in and the swell and waves start to pick up. If I do get down when it is like this you can immediately tell if there are any shoals of fish in the shallows by the ripple effect that can be seen in this image:
In the crystal clear water I came across another urchin, this time it was quite literally stuck to the leafs of the kelp. When I first saw it, it was almost completely wrapped in kelp. I kept coming back to the same spot and each time it had moved position. Instead of spines it had lots of tentacles like the underside of a sea star. They were continually searching out looking for something to sucker onto. It is called a Collector Urchin, and they will often be found with small rocks, shells, debris or anything else it can get to use for protection or camouflage:
On a day that was not quite as clear, and just when I thought there would be nothing to write home about I came across a very stunning looking fish, this one was probably about a foot long and maybe a tad more. I immediately took a snap from the surface and have cropped the image for you. As soon as I duck dived to get a closer inspection the fish was gone, I did find it again but yet again it darted off like a flash and the image I got is even more blurry. It is a Long-snout Boarfish, another solitary fish and one that I really hope to find again one day:
Just before my weekend away climbing Lisa and I went down after work one day and the water didn’t look too bad, but was a bit choppy on top. All those jelly fish that were around before seemed to be disappearing, so I wondered what I might find in the less that ideal conditions. Then I came across this very colourful anemone, I’m guessing it is a Tube Anemone but I cannot find anything online that looks like it. It is also possible that it is a Bead Anemone, as it looks like it has the blobby body to retract in unlike other Tube Anemones I’ve seen:
On that last dive and as I made my way back to the beach I came across a shoal of whitebait. So did a bit of duck diving and they erratically shot this way and that in what looked like organised chaos, and would no doubt have made that ripple effect on the surface if it had not been quite so choppy. That was the last dive from which I have pulled this emails images from so I hope you enjoyed the collection of hits, which some of you may remember was a great way to get a compilation of the stars on 45 when vinyl was the way to go:
Sandbagged 