Over the last week I was hoping to dip in and out of the ocean after work, but as it was I only managed two snorkels. The first was in crystal clear waters, as the image below shows. Sadly the easterlies then started to come in, and when I went for the second dip the visibility was being affected. This continued and by the time the weekend came the increasing murkiness was evident by just looking at the water from the beach. Still it is early on in the season and I am confident things will return to the conditions that I experienced during this dip on Monday:
Calm, clear and warm waters. It was also my first dive without a wetsuit on. I had limited time so went down in my boardies and jumped in expecting to last only a short time before I got cold. I was wrong, and it felt lovely. Next time however, I need to remember to bring my weight belt with just one lead weight. This post will not have any scientific names and I won’t be able to supply you with any educational facts. I’ve drawn a blank on the finds of interest, and all my sources have failed to help me:
I do know that the above are eggs from the southern calamari or the southern reef squid, and have seen three of these clusters already. This one seemed to be drifting back and forth in the low swell, like tumble weed blowing through a deserted town. These are usually attached to something to no doubt prevent them getting damaged in higher swells, or worse storms. So I don’t hold out a lot of hope for this clusters, and even less for the single egg that had detached from it:
While the water was wonderful in every way, there wasn’t a lot happening on the marine creature front. I was bobbing up and down checking out as many ledges and caves as I could find, but there was nothing of note. That is other than the many interesting algae, weed and corals that I came across. The above is quite common and distinctive, looking like a brain, but I have not identified it yet. Then the was the weird looking one that I found under a shelf. It looks like the pulp of a passionfruit, and again I have not found anything out about it:
I’ve even resorted to sending a few finds to some marine biologists who have previously helped me. After close to a week I have not heard back, and if I do and it includes anything particularly interesting I’ll mentioned them again another time. You may recall during the first snorkel of the season I came across an amazing underwater garden: https://sandbagged.blog/2021/11/13/the-star-attraction/. I still do not know anything about the main attraction of that floral display, but did come across them again this time:
These filter feeders, which I can only assume are tube worms, were not looking so good this time. In fact I would go so far as to say they looked positively bedraggled. I managed a couple of reasonable close up images of the remaining specimens. They remind me of a cone flower, with the central ball and extensions protruding outwards: https://sandbagged.blog/2020/09/28/flower-power/. My next find was the following strange fluorescent plant, which resembles a mass of maggots crossed with strings of fairy lights. Again something so distinctive, but that hasn’t helped me narrow down what they may be:
I then continued along the bare rocky ground, because you never know what you see. This is where I came across a Brittle Star, which was a really lucky find. They are usually hiding under rocks, and while I dive down a lot I do not shift the rocks about to look for things. They normally hide during the day and come out at night to scavenge. I’ve watched the eleven armed sea star moving, at what seems an impressive rate. Relatively speaking this star was however sprinting across the rocky terrain. I battled against my buoyancy but managed to get a short video:
Sandbagged 