We finally managed to get the pest control booked in for Thursday last week, to spray the house and deter spiders from cohabitating with us. We have this done annually, this time being delayed and we had noticed an increase in White-tailed Spiders (Lampona cylindrata). These were the biggest concern, as bites from these can cause swelling and itchiness. Something all three of us had experienced recently. The other common spiders were not so much of a worry, such as the Black House Spider (Badumna insignis) that like the in White-tailed Spider is native, and of course the introduced Daddy-long-legs Spider (Pholcus phalangioides):
We have the house sprayed with pyrethrin based chemicals, which is naturally found in some chrysanthemum flowers. That said, these chemicals can affect humans and dogs alike, mucking about with the normal operation of the nerves and brain function. Therefore, the poodles had gone with Lisa to school and, as I was working from home, I had to get out of the house for a few hours. A trip to the post office to pick up the mail only chewed up half an hour, so I took my snorkel gear with me and went in for a swim at Wave Walk off Peppy Beach:
The flat looking ocean looked inviting, with small rolling waves on occasion washing the shoreline. But as soon as my head went under it was clear that it wasn’t clear. Far from it and the under toad, for those familiar with The World According to Garp, had stirred up a storm below the surface. Needless to say it was a pretty ordinary snorkel, and I saw very little. Come Saturday and driving back from my morning out climbing with Ash at Wilyabrup the ocean once more looked very inviting:
Not completely put off by the deception from a few days back, I planned to tag along with Geoff and Benny for a dive, again off Wave Walk, on Sunday morning,. It turned out to be a fair crew, with Nana, Moni, and Gav also joining. At 8:30, as we stood on the beach it already felt hot, as we waited for Benny who seemed to forget one thing after another. Gav had to cool down and bobbed in the water, watched on by a couple of gulls. And as Benny continued to faff, the rest of us went in ahead of him:
The visibility over the near shore reef looked a bit better than it had on Thursday, but only marginally. I was however encouraged by a Southern Eagle Ray (Myliobatis tenuicaudatus) that seemed happy for me to swim with and above it, as it led me out to deeper waters. Here the visibility definitely improved, with the swell being distributed over a deeper column of water so it did not have the force required to mobilise the bed sediments. The reef was fairly plain and flat, but the occasional feature provided an opportunity to explore:
While there were plenty of fish about, I didn’t spot anything unusual or new. Not all of them were hiding from me like the above Brownspotted Wrasse (Notolabrus parilus), and no doubt someone new to the area would have marvelled over the many species I saw. I was however very happy to find the fully orange anemone shown two images above. It seemed a bit of a coincidence, after finding and getting so excited with the Sea Anemone with an orange body last weekend while diving the reef off from the Capel River mouth:
Similar to that last dive I also came across yet another species of Feather Duster Tubeworm (Sabellidae). The colouration of the delicate radiole, which swayed gently with the water as they filtered out food, was distinctly different to the ones I had seen before. It is this that I am assuming indicates it was a difference species, but I could be wrong. The below colourful find is however an easy one to identify, the electric blue lines and spots covering the bright orange body meaning it was undoubtedly a juvenile Common Scalyfin (Parma victoriae):
One more image of a Golf Ball Sponge (Tethya). While there are fifteen species found in southern Australian waters and despite the pinky looking colour, which may be partly an optical illusion created by the way the light was refracting through the water, I’d hazard a guess at saying it is an Orange Golf Ball Sponge (Tethya ingalli). After an hour plus in the water, one by one we headed back to shore. And as we got closer we were once again engulfed in sediment and weed unable to see the seabed:
Sandbagged 