Right on cue

It’s the Christmas school holiday and as is customary for this time of the year the ocean at our beach is blessed with a particular sea creature.  I hear that they prefer calm warm waters and can lurk both at the surface and at depth, also they can at times be close to shore or as far out as you may dare to venture.  So what I am trying to say is that there is no escape, and if you want to snorkel you have to toughen up and just get on with it.  I’m not talking about the innocent Weeping Toado that I came across as I first put my head under the water:

I’ve been in the water twice since my last collection of images, but this time do not expect anything too spectacular.  The swells picked up a bit and with that so did the weed and sand, visibility was dropping and the ones that you can’t escape seemed to increase in numbers with each dip. Making it a less comfortable experience.  I did however come across a familiar friend, the Truncate Coralfish.  My field guide indicates it doesn’t venture here but the black mark at the top of the single dorsal fin gives it away and also indicates that it is not quite an adult yet:

I’ve probably mentioned it several times but in years gone by the local beach was drag netted by commercial fisher folk.   This destroyed much of the reef and corals, but if you look around there are still some corals that can be found.  This one is from the Faviidae family, the small raised circular pattern giving it away.  Looking close up each circle comprises a number of tiny prongs that I assume are searching the water for microscopic nutrition, as the swell pushes it back and forth across the brain like structure:

That was it for this snorkel and as I made my way back to shore I was not looking down at the sandy bed in case there was an interesting find, but looking in front of me and where I was going.  Dodging the small jelly fish with their four, fortunately not too long, tentacles that are lined with stinging cells filled with poison.  It seems the South Western Stinger realises that with school holiday there comes a feast of people on which to prey.  Although that said they actually feed on zooplankton and other small organisms that live in the upper water column:

The weekend before Christmas and it was claggy underwater.  The surface looked relatively calm, but underneath the swell was doing its destructive business of stirring up a storm.  The small innocent waves rolled onto the beach relatively clean and transparent, but you could tell by looking at the colour of the deeper water that it was not likely to be very good.  Regardless of what I saw I just wanted to get my head under water.  It was the first morning of my break from work over Christmas and I wanted to feel like I was holiday and do something fun:

While water was like the a thick soupy cold winters day when the mist was down, a few duck dives soon revealed life.  Shoals of tiny baby fish huddled amongst the weed, their sharp eyes spotting me as I snuck up on them.  Keeping a safe distance from me but always hugging the safety of the weed and not venturing out into the open.  As I potted about I also spied a shoal of herring swim past me, but within a breathe they were lost from vision.  Some might question my sanity for being out here in conditions like this, and whether I have a strange sense of fun:

Needless to say I didn’t stay too long and those that will tell you the South Western Stinger is only found in calm water is sadly misguiding you.  I could feel the tentacle brush across my skin releasing poison from their stinging cells.  There were not too many but I could feel them, even if I couldn’t see them.  It makes you wonder what else I might not be seeing past the few meters of visibility that this day was offering.  And when your mind start to play those tricks it is best to head back to shore, but not before watching this colourful display: