It was that bit harder to motivate myself to get up. But having promised Lisa a cuppa in bed, before she need to get up and head down for her Saturday morning bob in the ocean, I forced myself. Even though I didn’t feel like being vertical, once up I’m not the sort of person that can easily go back to being horizontal. Cuppa drunk and Lisa was soon up and out the door. Shortly after she sent me a video of what the ocean was doing. It was still early in terms of how high the sun was in the sky:
But the water conditions looked promising plus I was up now, and we were aiming to head into town, which would prevent a later dip. Wandering onto the beach, to the right I could see Lisa and the Peppy Plungers getting ready to dip. While to the left the small but regular as clockwork dog walking crew, which Lisa sometimes catches up with during her before work walk, were giving their four legged friends a run on the sand. I stayed in the middle, making my way out of the shallows cautiously, dodging the pockets of stingers:
The sun was still low, as was the tide and swell. So much so that the reef was a bit closer and the water was in pretty good conditions. I was hoping to see my first ray of the season today, and while I thought I was in luck it was not to be. The big shape hoovering on the bottom was instead an adult Dusky Morwong (Dactylophora nigricans), shown in the first image and the largest species of fish I’ve seen here. Still not fully awake, and allowing me to get very close before leisurely swimming off. And while I got some images super close, I kinda liked the one in this post:
Many of the fish were out in a more chilled way than usual. Allowing me to say hello and snap a few pictures, before they decided their personal space was being invaded too much. Two images above an Old Wife (Enoplosus armatus), which at my local reef is normally hiding in the crevices was out and about. And even the above Rough Bullseye (Pempheris klunzingeri) allowed me to get a reasonable image. They are normally very skittish, and usually being found under ledges I have struggled to get any in focus images of them:
The above female Herring Cale (Olisthops cyanomelas) was not as keen on me lurking about. If you didn’t know it was there it would have been wonderfully camouflaged in the kelp. These, like most wrasses, change sex and colour during its life. The juvenile is disguised as well as the female being a mix of brown and yellow, but with blue wavy lines on the head, which this one did not have. While the males are more brazen, and can be spotted from afar being a pale blue to almost black and have striking blue lines on the caudal (tail) fin:
The lucky last fish to be included in this write up, is a juvenile. It followed me for ten plus minutes and all the way back to the shore. Circling my head the whole time. Approx. 50mm long, silvery with faint yellow on the dorsal and caudal fin and vertical lines on the main body. Being so young it is a tough call, and maybe a Skipjack Trevally (Pseudocaranx dentex). They school when young, so it has been separated from a school that may have been attacked, as it had some scarring in front of the dorsal fin. So being called lucky last may be apt, if it survives:
Sandbagged 