This was an on again off again weekend away, and that was several times over. In part because it is getting to silly season, and places are booking up rapidly. We were however keen for a night away, and eventually found a spot to our liking. With a stinker of a weekend, predicated to be in the mid-thirties, it was never going to be a trip with walks. More so a stint away of mostly slobbing; or more politely said, relaxing and recharging. A good choice as on the way home today, as we dove through Busselton, the car hinted it tipped over forty:
Saturday afternoon was filled with a nice lunch and dinner out, plus games of course. Interspersed with a bit of tellie to watch a dreadful Christmas film or two, as we quite literally chilled out in the cool of the room we had booked. There will be no Instagram style images of food and alike here. So the pictures in this post dive straight into Sunday morning. When, wanting to make the most of being away, after a much later started than we would normally have at home we made the short drive to the White Elephant Café at Gnarabup:
We’ve only been here once before, and really liked the place. It overlooks a very inviting and protected bay that includes a good looking reef. While I have harked on about water quality taking forever to come good off our local beach. I have been aware that the waters off other beaches being pretty good, due to differing bed materials that settled out much quicker. It just feels a tad wasteful to drive for a few hours, just for an hour in the water. That said today we were already here and after yesterday’s great snorkel I was busting to get in the water:
For various reasons Lisa was not so keen. Fortunately for me the café has good coffee and a vista that she could happily watch for hours, so she told me to go in. The beach was way busier than what we are used to back home, but once under the water the crowds who stuck close to shore were a distant memory. Not far out I came across a Southern Eagle Ray (Myliobatis tenuicaudatus) heading in the opposite direction. Most times I see these they try to swim away, this one however cruised right past me not even bothering to speed up:
Like the Southern Eagle Ray I too slowly carried on. Making my way out, past the limestone pillars sticking out of the water, and then disappearing from Lisa’s sight round the headland. The reef was as good as it looked from the café. Lots of shelves and caves to explore. Not wasting the opportunity, I checked out quite a few of them but found surprisingly little. The fish life was way less than yesterday’s dive back at Peppy Beach, although the change in ground and a bit of a different makeup of marine vegetation made up for it:
The reef is made up of limestone, and I noticed that the vertical walls were mostly clear of weed. Being covered with limpets and what I believe are Giant Chiton (Plaxiphora albida). There are around 1,000 worldwide and about 150 species in Australia, many being endemic, so I cannot be completely sure. They are a kind of mollusc, protected by a ‘coat-of-mail’ shell with eight segments. Described as a primitive animal that is believed to have been about well before the dinosaurs, with fossils found dating back 500 million years:
On the way back in, my slow and meticulous scouring of the weed paid off. I thought I had come across a collection of eggs, it is however a Wandering Sea Anemone (Phlyctenactis tuberculosa). These anemones do not anchor themselves to a spot, and are described to ‘wander the ocean like an underwater tumbleweed’. It’s bubble-like sacks can come in a range of colours from brownish orange, mauve, light grey to brown in colour. If you look closely these ones also display a stripy pattern. During the day they are bundled together:
When night time comes in, it can detach its basal disc from wherever it has rested during the day so it can become mobile. It is even able to move along the seabed using its disc to creep along. Liking to find a high point where it will unfurl from the daytime spherical shape into a tube. This allows the stinging tentacles to face out and collect food. This singular find more than making up for the lack of fish today. Although I’ll finish with a King George Whiting (Sillaginodes punctatus), found right on the shoreline not at all worried about the crowds:
Sandbagged 