Being Stalked

Last week a low pressure system came over the SW, which dropped the temperature, brought some wind and resulted in the waters looking a little cloudy compared to the previous stellar conditions of last weekend.  I was however keen to get out and seeing Sunday morning was booked up with a climb Lisa and I headed to Wave Walk on Saturday, a spot that Geoff had once told me was worth a visit.  In view of the weather not being ideal Lisa chose to not go in, and instead was enjoying some beach time with her book and a cuppa:

The toll of the week’s weather was clear, weed was floating on the surface and the water had a cloudy look to it. Still I persevered and tootled about to see what I could find.  The longer I stayed in the more my eye’s tuned into the conditions and there was the occasional fish to spot.  I duck dived down to check out some ledges but there was nothing to exciting to report on hiding underneath them:

Contemplating whether to stay in or not a large Smooth Stingray cruised past.  This one was in no hurry and I swam alongside it taking some video footage and a number of snaps before leaving it to dawdled into the murkiness.  These gentle giants can grow to 2m and weight 350kg, and this one was only a tad over a meter wide.  I’ve seen a few without their tail, and it is said that some anglers and commercial trawlers cut them off to reduce the risk of getting hurt while throwing them back into the ocean.  After watching the ray I started to see lots of shoals of fish, but mostly stuff I have already reported on this season:

There was a small squid that stayed just far enough away from me to take an image, before finally having enough of me and powering out of sight.  I also spotted a Spiny Tail Leatherjacket that looked amazing, the four bright yellow spikes just in front of the tail giving it away.  That one too stayed a safe distance.  This Humpback Boxfish was not so shy and allowed me to follow it round for quite a while.  After an hour I came out happy with my finds.  Lisa and I sat on the beach while I sipped my tea, and fought the urge not to jump back in as a large pod of dolphins slowly drift past:

Sunday I drove back into Peppy in the early afternoon, after my morning climb, and there was no wind.  So before heading home I did a quick circuit to check the conditions.  It was pancake and very snorkelable, so after dumping the climbing gear and have a quick drink I wandered to the local beach.  Not a wave and hardly a ripple, a complete contrast to the day before.  While the water temperature never really changes on hot days like this it somehow feels much easier to slip into the water and not have to fight the initial shock:

The water was clear and calm, so I started to scour the familiar territory of my old hunting ground.  There wasn’t much fish life to be seen but that didn’t stop me pottering about, diving down to check out sponges and where I could find them fan worms.  Occasionally there are opening in the limestone reef and you can see in the cracks and crevices, and in this one I spied a very colourful striped fish.  It was of course gone when I dove down and from this image alone it is impossible to try and work out which fish it was:

While I didn’t see much else I did get the feeling I was being stalked.  Normally garfish have not hung about, but a reasonably sized shoal was following behind me and continued to tail me for a long time.  Previously I have spotted the Robust Garfish, but these are Southern Garfish.  They spawn in the shallow sea grass, of which we have lots, and the young can stay in the shallows for a couple of years.  Feeding on strange mixture of sea grass, algal filaments and on occasion crustacean.  In this image one of the them has its mouth open, which I was surprised to see above the beak:

The clear waters made it a pleasant dive and to boot there were no stingers, which I would normally expect on such a calm day.  That said the school holidays are now over so maybe like all the tourists they too have gone.  I also came across a big school of Australian Herring, these fish move along the southern coast of Australia from Victoria to the SW of Western Australia.  Our SW corner is the only place they are known to spawn, and as such this area plays an important part in the life cycle:

Heading back in, more because my calves were cramping after climbing, I came across a small school of what I am going to assume to be Southern School Whiting.  Alongside the herring these are the more common fish that the local beach anglers catch for a feed.  These fish have a wider distribution than the herring stretching further up the west coast.  I often find these right along the shore and you can see them from the beach:

I’m hoping to venture a bit further afield with Lisa next weekend, so who knows what we might see.