I have been very remiss this summer at attempting to get into the ocean for a swim with the fish. The conditions for a second year on the trot have been pretty average. The wrong type, or should I say direction, of winds resulting in the ocean never being given a real chance to properly settle down for any great period. That is not to say there haven’t been windows of opportunities, and a few weeks back both Geoff and Rongy reported experiencing great conditions, on separate occasions. I missed out on both of those opportunities:
Encouraged by Mario telling me he had a swim in the ocean yesterday, and found the water to feel warm I decided I might give it a go. He also reported murky conditions, but checking the weather, the swell at my local beach had supposedly been a promising low one metre’ish. I even did a pre-dip reconnaissance by walking over the hill to see which way the wind was blowing and whether the water looked flat, which it did. The only negative being the cloudy sky, which Lisa described from the comfort of our home as being sharky:
Walking to the beach the second time, prepared for a swim, the sand was wet from the rain that had doused the landscape overnight. There was a sole person on the beach, who was fishing but at that time was looking out to sea. A large pod of dolphins not too far off shore was cruising past, so I unfortunately missed my chance to swim with them by five minutes or so. The water felt cold as it crept up my legs, and when it feels like that there is only one way to get in and that is to dive in. Straight into a big cluster of South Western Stingers:
I don’t recall them sticking about this late in the season, but no matter I managed to avoid being stung. A mere ten metres from the shoreline I left the stingers behind and was then surrounded by a shoal of baitfish. Based on their yellow stripe and shape I assume they were Anchovy (Engraulidae). Being cloudy the visibility as expected, was not the best leading me to stay a bit closer to shore than usual, Lisa’s words eating away at the back of my mind. The baitfish followed me for most of the dive, and I spotted a number of the usual fish:
Despite trying pretty hard I didn’t find any crustaceans, cephalopods, mollusca, or cetaceans; or in layman terms crabs or lobsters; octopus or cuttlefish; nudibranch or sea hares; or dolphins. There were of course, like the fish, the ever present and visible echinoderm, otherwise known as sea stars and sea urchins. Swimming back over the open areas, fine dark organic material settled in the troughs of the wave-sculpted ripples on the sand, creating pretty patterns. But also a sign that should the wind and/or the swell pick up, this sediment will lift up and fill the water column:
Sandbagged 