The sting in the tail today was not so much from our pesky local jellies. There are being found in increasing numbers, patrolling the shallows of our local beach. But with care it is possible to navigate your way through them safely. It was that I was not able to join in with the fun happening down at Wilyabrup. Howsie and Ash had teed up a trip out, and were being joined by Mikey and Josh. Work got in the way, as the mad pre-Christmas shutdown rush is on, when everyone decides to send everything in and ask us to try and get to it quickly:
I am also conscious of not using the car too much. The overheating issues are still lingering, and the work required for the next step to try and resolve it are booked in for mid-January. Added to that, I may have been having just that bit too much fun on rock this year. Indeed, looking back I have certainly been out and about a fair bit, and had some great weekends away to the Perth Hills, Eaglestone Rock, and the mighty South Coast. So I can’t complain, but my old shoulder injury has started to. And that is more of a worry than work or my car:
As such I stayed home today. I’ll also miss out on an early before work climb at Welly Dam on Monday, when Mikey will take on the lines I put up at the start of 2023 (hopefully). With his rope being held by Howsie, and being joined by Rongy and Sarah for one last climb in WA before they finally head off on their travels. Or so they say, and based on past experience I won’t be convinced till they hit the road and stay on it. While I will miss out on these more social outings, I was accompanied under water today by more fish than normal:
Plenty of schools were out, but the above mass of Western Striped Grunter (Helotes octolineatus) was the most fun. They followed and swam underneath me, and when I duck dived down a circle opened up in the middle of them. It felt like being in the eye of a storm, as the fish swam in circles round me almost from the seabed to the surface. In addition to the schools the usual suspects were out, and despite being included in my last post I couldn’t resists this clearer image of a female Herring Cale (Olisthops cyanomelas)
The final image from my quick workday dip is a colonial ascidian. As the name suggests it is a colony of tiny animals, that commonly forms round a substrate such as a sponge or reef. This one however, looked to be unattached and able to move freely. Looking a bit like a sea cucumber, although the intricate pattern and small siphons over its body gives it away. They are very hard to identify without examining their internal structure, so is beyond my skills. We see these unattached variety washed up on the beach, but this is the first one I have seen underwater:
Sandbagged 