Not that I’m complaining, as what we are going through really is a drop in the ocean compared to so many other people round the world, but we have after all our months of freedom gone into a five day lockdown. I wouldn’t be surprised if it gets extended and if that happen the timing would be a shame, as next week Elseya is supposed to be heading off to university. Moving out and finding her own two feet without the immediate security of home, with us there to help her out. I am however getting distracted:
Seeing we are working from home and only allowed out for an hour a day for some exercise, what better an idea than to head to the beach. So after shutting down the computer after work that is what Lisa and I did. I of course checked the wind, swell and tide conditions before heading down and decided to take a chance. Before I had even got to the reef I came across a Bight Stingaree trying to hide in the mass of weed collecting on the sand, settling out after last week’s less favourable conditions. I went down to check it out one time to often and it was off:
The water clarity was pretty good. And as I came over the reef I saw a nice trigger fish, which disappeared with what looked to be a sudden flick of a tail. Something looked wrong, the tail looked too big so I went down and sure enough there was another fish that hadn’t run for cover. The long feelers near the mouth are a pretty good indicator of what I had come across, and I have been hoping to see one of these for a long time. The large googly eyes looked like the one you can buy from a craft shop, and appeared to be stuck on and disproportionately large:
Estuary Catfish are benthic fish, like the Spotted Wobbegong I found on the last dive. Meaning they dwell on the lowest part of the water body, the feelers search out the food and a large mouth sucks it up. The broad head like the eyes looked too large for the rest of the body, which ends in a skinny almost flat vertical tail. Like the little Stingaree this fish also has venomous spines, and I’ve just read they can be very painful and repeat stabs can be fatal. So it’s lucky I didn’t get too close:
Fuelled with curiosity and a urge to find more things I ducked dived down to just about every ledge I could find. Lots more juvenile fish were out, and while I followed them about it was more just to observe than take images. Checking out under each ledge I was hoping that something might be lurking but that was not to be. I did however really like this little collection of bivalves with a bryozoan nested next to them. The bivalves detected my presence and rapidly shut, I seem to have a knack for disturbing things today:
In one of the sandy patches a strange shape caught my eye, and on closer inspection I was greeted with this sight. Part of me was hoping it was another fascinating burrowing creature and I was just lucky to have spied it. But now looking at it and after consulting with Rongy we wonder if it may be the underside of a Cushion Sea Star. The white bits being decaying flesh. There is a sea urchin spine next to it and maybe that is the culprit? While I could have dug round it to check it out, and gruesome as this may seem, it is usually best to leave such natural situations to play out as nature intended:
My search continued and there were fish here and there, no big shoals like in my last dive but a few pretty ones. While I have capture images of Smooth Western Boxfish numerous times before, I really like this picture. The fish stands out really well against the lush green background. While it wasn’t overly keen on me prying into its life, it kept popping in and out of the weed as if to allow me to capture a few great images. For once here is a fish that I feel the female is prettier than the male, and I left her alone while I carried on with my own journey:
The direction of that journey was now to the shoreline. Only being in my boardies today the water was sucking the heat out of my body that bit quicker. But as is so often the case I got distracted, this time by what I believed to be a Coral Shell. As I got closer I noticed that there was an inhabitant, and for a change it seemed not to mind me being about. Due to the direction the light was coming I wasn’t able to get a clear image of its legs and claws but the two piercing orange eyes and its long skinny antenna can be clearly seen:
So it is fair to say that I really am not complaining about being in lock down. With our beach a short three minute walk away, being snorkelling season, and the water seeming to come to life after a bit of a sketchy start what better place to be stuck. Despite the beach not having many people on it, the odd dog walker and swimmer, we still donned our masks as directed. I get the feeling that there may be a few more beach trips this week, but whether I’ll score such great afternoon conditions in the water is yet to be seen:
Sandbagged 