Third time lucky seems to work.  The cause of my four months of woes has been revealed, by mechanic number three.  I sadly still have to wait another week for the parts to arrive and everything being put back together.  They have had the car since last Thursday, resulting in me working from home for most of this week.  And until today I have managed to avoid the temptation of sneaking down to the beach.  That changed today, being my ‘Friday’ as I am taking a day off to go climbing tomorrow, and I popped down after closing the laptop:

A quick look provides multiple origins of the term ‘third time lucky’, the one I liked was the story of John ‘Babbacombe’ Lee.  A sailor from the West Country in England, where Lisa was born and grew up.  Back in 1885 he was sentence to death and survived three hangings resulting in his sentence being commuted and being set free.  However, the term predates this event and other theories cite magical beliefs, religion, and common folk lore.  Back to today, since the weekend’s amazing conditions the swell and wind have been up a bit:

The surface was still a bit choppy this afternoon.  No matter, as I decided to go in regardless of the conditions because it was another stinky hot summers day.  Beautifully clear water greeted me, as I started my exploring.  It all seemed a little quiet but I managed to sneak up on the above juvenile Moonlighter (Tilodon sexfasciatus).  Juvenile’s tend to be solitary, whereas adults are known to school.  Their appearance and size also change considerably when they mature, but they head out to deeper waters so I have not come across any adults:

Under a shelf I spotted a small Southern Bailer (Melo miltonis) with a damaged shell.  These carnivorous molluscs tend to feed at night and on overcast days, so I was a little surprised to see it on such a cloudless bright day when the water was so clear.  It always amazes me how big the foot of these creatures are relatively, almost making the protective shell a little superfluous.  Maybe that is why they would normally bury themselves in the sand during the day.  The below Pale Mosaic Seastar (Echinaster arcystatus) caught my eye because of its lovely purple hue:

It looked a little comical with round limbs that looked like arms and legs sprawled out, as if it was a coach potato watching TV.  This made me wonder if this maybe the species that was the inspiration for Patrick Star.  Who you may ask, but I’ll get to that.  It is not such a silly notion, as Stephen Hillenburg studied marine biology and was working for the Ocean Institute when he created a comic book called ‘The Intertidal Zone’.  This was the inspiration for SpongeBob SquarePants, and of course Patrick Star is, well, one of the ‘stars’ of that show:

Back to facts, and I couldn’t resist including the above Female Western Smooth Boxfish (Anoplocapros amygdaloides).  The body was a brilliant white and the intricate texture was very visible and amazing to see.  I also liked its little friend, and follower, who is difficult to identify.  I’ve seen this small fish before and back then thought it may be a juvenile Skipjack Trevally (Pseudocaranx dentex), but that really is a guess.  I’ll leave you with one last image of a second and much bigger Southern Bailer, and I challenge you to find its eye.  Something I have not noticed their eyes before, as I usually out on murky days:

‘It’s just out there’, swim out to the pontoon and the same distance again.  So I have been told a few times.  Lisa was heading out for her Saturday morning plunge, and the crew enter the water right off where the pontoon is located.  You could say I decided to try this new bit of reef, which I have heard about for a number of years, on the basis of safety in numbers.  If that was lurking in the back of my mind as a rationale, it was a false sense of security.  The plungers never go past the pontoon, and don’t always go that far:

They were waiting on the beach for the full contingency before they went in.  The Saturday morning dip being just as much about the social as it is about being in the water.  They are a great crew for sure, but I’m not one for chatter so left them there and started a beeline to the pontoon.  Here I said a quick hello to a solitary Greater Crested Tern (Thalasseus bergii), both of us happy with our isolation.  I looked back to gauge how far I had come and how far I would need to go, and swam on.  Leaving the Greater Crested Tern in peace:

With no idea of what to expect other than it was supposed to be good, I swam the same distance again, and again, and then again.  The plungers were a mere speck back at the beach and I continued to swim.  With easily six meters plus of water below me, I started to allow my mind question how much I was liking isolation right now.  A stupid thought, which I pushed to the back of my mind.  Eventually the depth started to reduce.  I had been told there were some great plate corals and that spurred me on, and then gave me a clue when I arrived:

It was deeper than I expected, or was led to believe.  Some bommies came to approx. four meters but much of it was deeper.  This was immediately obvious from the green tinge of the view below me.  Fifty percent of the brightness beaming down from above is lost in the first meter of water due to both reflection and refraction.  Then with depth the colours start to disappear.  Following the rainbow colours, red, orange, yellow, green, and finally blue are lost at approx. depths of four, seven, ten, twenty, and sixty meters:

I’ve previously tried to identify these plate corals, having seen them elsewhere.  I had considered it may be of the Astreopora genus, but with more resources at my fingertips I believe it may be a Yellow Scroll Coral (Turbinaria reniformis).  These form various shapes including singular plates, such as the ones I saw today.  Added to that the colour, corallites size and spacing, and distinct rim free of corallites all point towards it.  I could immediately see why those chasing Western Rock Lobster (Panulirus Cygnus) would like it here:

I dove down to the big caves and ledges hoping to find some big but gentle creatures resting for the day, other than Western Rock Lobsters.  Sadly, while it was a nice spot and I spent a good length of time checking it out, I didn’t find much.  The only fish that I don’t normally see was a solitary young Snapper (Chrysophrys auratus) maybe a foot in length.  It kept coming back, each time keeping a health distance.  Hence the third image is gloomy, but good enough to check the body shape and see the many small electric blue spots scattered on upper sides:

Eventually I started back, and here I came across smaller young Snapper, as shown two images up.  Snapper are one of the most popular food and sport fish in southern Australia, growing to four feet, weighing up to twenty kilograms, and living to forty years old if they manage to avoid being caught.  The ones I had seen were obviously very young.  A school of young Southern Garfish (Hyporhamphus melanochir) also appeared.  Keeping their distance, and like the Snapper I had seen these too were well below their full size of close to two feet:

Back at shore the plungers were, as I had left them, on the beach.  If it wasn’t for the wet bathers and hair I could have questioned if they had even been in.  I asked them how far I had gone, and was surprised to hear that they through I had been as far out as the above boat that had just arrived.  I’m not sure I’d go back there, maybe one day but I’m not in a rush.  Seeing the winds were staying light all day, I asked Lisa if she fancied having a second plunge in the afternoon and she surprised me by saying she was keen for a snorkel:

It has been several years since Lisa has been out for a snorkel.  The fear of bitey things having crept up and put her off, which is why the plungers have been so good for her.  Going into the water with a social crew has put her mind at ease, and given her confidence about being back in the water.  As Lisa and I say ‘if anyone can a Pelican can’.  So it felt like the right time for her to get back into snorkelling when two Australian Pelicans (Pelecanus conspicillatus) glided over the water, check the image above, just out from where we stood:

This time we were not intending to be in deep water, but the term deep is relative depending on where your comfort zone is.  Lisa had already said she probably won’t go as far out as I would, which was fine.  Almost immediately we saw fish clear as daylight, in the much shallow waters than I had been that morning.  When I spotted a Western Rock Octopus (Octopus djinda) it provided a great opportunity for Lisa to have a bash at duck diving, so she could get a closer look.  And just like the one I found last week this one also surprised me when it reached out:

I normally snorkel with my head under water the entire time.  Swimming with someone else changes that.  There is the need to occasional pop up and check where they are, and at times call them over because you have found something cool.  In the shallow water I did this one time, and out of the corner of my eye I saw fish, with a body shape like young snapper, jump clean out of the water.  This occurred several times.  Fish will usually jump like that if they are stressed or feel threatened, the big question is what made them feel that way:

I thought that would put paid to Lisa’s snorkel, but it didn’t.  Maybe because it was some way from where we were.  She did however stay closer to shore, as I swam out, missing out on the shoal of Southern Calamari Squid (Sepioteuthis australis) a couple of images up.  But when I came across a huge school Western Striped Grunter (Helotes octolineatus), and too her credit, she joined me several hundred meter out.  We made our way back to shore where we saw a juvenile Northern Sand Flathead (Platycephalus endrachtensis), this time with a black fleck visible on the tail:

With the added height advantage of being on the beach, we could see a shape where the fish had been jumping.  Someone was out there snorkelling, whether they were there before and the reason for the jumping fish we will never know.  They stayed there for a long time and seemed to going down to check the area out heaps.  So this morning that’s where I went, and was greeted by relatively barren ground.  Not as deep as past the pontoon, but deep enough to distort the colours, with ground that really wasn’t that interesting:

I gave it time to see if I missed something.  Scouring the area and going down to check out the limited small bommies.  Nothing jumped out and I eventually gave up, wondering what had caught the attention of the person we had seen.  It took me a while to orientate myself and work out where my usual patch of reef was.  Here I was rewarded with plenty to see.  Included yet another Western Rock Octopus, this one was however content to watch me from the safety of its daytime hidey-hole.  Making no effort to reach out and make contact:

It’s normally ‘thank god it’s Friday’, but this week I was more looking forward to Thursday.  Not because Thursday was my Friday, it wasn’t and I worked the full five days this week.  It was due to the stars aligning providing the lowest swell, along with light winds, and clear blue skies.  We’ve also tipped into the forties again, and being my working from home day I could break my time at keyboard and screen up with a couple of refreshing dips in the water.  Only the slightest ripples were evident, and the water was beautifully clear:

My first find was within ten meters of leaving the shoreline, above.  I almost missed it, as you may have.  A Smalltooth Flounder (Pseudorhombus jenynsii) was doing its thing, being perfectly camouflaged on the sand.  I took the above precautionary snap before positioning myself to go down and take a closer image, by which time it was gone.  Leaving me to identify the species from afar.  Fortunately, the four spots in a square and two along the middle near the tail, which may not be too obvious without the full resolution image, gave it away:

Flounder’s camouflaging techniques extend beyond its flatness, being able to change colour.  In addition the eyes protrude from the body, allowing it to see when it buries its body under the sand.  They start life like a typical fish, with eyes on either side of its body.  As it matures and flattens one eye gradually moves across to join the other one, and which eye moves depends on the species.  The Smalltooth Flounder being a ‘left-eye’ flounder, meaning the right eye has moved to the left side of the body and once there each eye can move independently:

My second find was a juvenile Northern Sand Flathead (Platycephalus endrachtensis), equally well camouflaged on the sand, although the closer image I got gives it away more easily.  This species is recognised by black stripes on the tail, which is where it gets another one of its names, being a Flagtail Flathead.  These weren’t evident, most likely to its young age.  It did however portray the expected brown spots on the head and body with a sandy background colour.  It is one of the smallest Australian flatheads, growing to a foot and half in length:

The water column above the sandy bed was filled with Southern School Whiting (Sillago bassensis), while below juvenile Blue Spotted Goatfish (Upeneichthys vlamingi) are starting to get visibly bigger.  Eventually, I made it to the reef and here I was greeted by a Western Australian Nudibranch (Chromodoris westraliensis).  This stunningly colourful creature was making absolutely no effort to be camouflaged against the drab background.  Reported to be the most common species of the Perth region, this was my first sighting:

It made me wonder how many species I have found.  There are hundreds of species in the waters of Western Australia, spread across 10,194 km of coastline ranging from temperate to tropical environments.  So after trawling back through my records I happy to find that I have now recorded fives species during my shore free dives.  Previous species being the Red-Netted (Goniobranchus tinctorius), Black Dendrodorid (Dendrodoris nigra), Short Tailed (Ceratosoma brevicaudatum), and White-Margin (Glossodoris rufomarginata) Nudibranchs:

I’ll leave you to search my blog if you want to see my images of these other species.  Meanwhile my journey continues and I had left the reef and started back across the open sandy bed.  Where I went down to check out what was making the above trail.  I believe it was a Variegated Pheasant Shell (Phasianella variegata) snail, but can’t be certain.  They tend to graze on seaweeds and seagrasses but are also found on reefs and coastal shores in shallow depths up to 5m:

The morning and afternoon dives were spectacular, and along the way I spotted Giant Cuttlefish (Sepia apama), Southern Calamari Squid (Sepioteuthis australis), Southern Eagle Ray (Myliobatis australis), Western Shovelnose Stingaree (Trygonoptera mucosa), and fish galore including two Striped Catfish (Plotosus lineatus) bait balls and a curious Dusky Morwong (Dactylophora nigricans), which swam up to me.  I was also quite taken by the hundreds and hundreds of Lugworms (Arenicola marina) egg sacs littering the seabed in the deeper waters:

Friday came and the visibility was equally good.  I didn’t think there was any way I could top what I had been lucky enough to see the day before.  Going in the water isn’t however just about what I see, although that is awesome.  It is also a great way to chill out, quite literally on a forty degree day, and a wonderful way to free the mind.  There wasn’t anything new to report on the sand, but soon after getting to the reef this Southern Eagle Ray (Myliobatis australis) appeared and allowed me to swim alongside it:

I was in the water a little earlier today, due to an early’ish meeting that I wanted to prepare for.  This worked to my advantage when I stumbled across a school of Yellowhead Hulafish (Trachinops noarlungae), dancing the open waters.  I’ve often seen them lurking the darker recesses of caves and overhangs, resulting in poorer quality images.  This time the yellow on their heads and distinctive shaped tails flashed as the light hit them, adding to their energetic movements.  Putting the docile Western Gobbleguts (Ostorhinchus rueppellii) to shame:

In a past post I have pondered whether this creature was a Pustulose Wart Slug (Phyllidiella pustulosa) or Mimic Flatworm (Pseudoceros imitatus).  This time I can say with more certainty it is a Mimic Flatworm, the colours may be similar but the patterning and shapes on the body are quite different.  While the Pustulose Wart Slug has a fuller body, which this one looks to have, when I got home and looked more closely there are in fact two Mimic Flatworms.  It is possible they are mating which occurs via hypodermic insemination through the body tissue:

Sounds painful so I’ll not go any further on that topic.  There wasn’t anything else exciting or more to the point different from yesterday.  As I headed back across the deeper waters over the sand, I drifted further out due to the great visibility and came across a bit of reef that I hadn’t looked at before.  It didn’t seem anything special from above, but went down just in case.  Quite by chance spotting the unmistakable eye of a Western Rock Octopus (Octopus djinda), a curious one that reached out and wrapped it tentacle round my camera:

I went down three times and on the first two occasions it reached out.  Being in approx. four meters of water I struggled to stay down too long, so sadly I didn’t get to test how far it may have gone in interacting we me.  It was now definitely time to get back to work but even that couldn’t bring me down from the high of that encounter.  Later in the afternoon I was back in the water and the fish were everywhere.  I have however only included one image, which captures five species with a cautious looking Globefish (Diodon nicthemerus) in the middle:

The four species shown above have all coped recent mentions, other than possibly the Horseshoe Leatherjacket (Meuschenia hippocrepis).  And then I was blown away when I spotted the distinctive head of a Green Turtle (Chelonia mydas).  While these are found worldwide it is a rare sight to see them off our small stretch of Western Australia’s coastline, and only my second.  I was even more chuffed when, unlike my last encounter, this one lazily swam away before injecting a burst of speed and disappearing:

Meh, meaning uninspiring or unexceptional, is how I would describe the water this week.  The swell conditions were affected by what is called a groundswell.  This occurs when winds far out to sea covering long distances transfer its energy to the water, and normally results in a longer swell period.  On a summers day we usually experience a windswell, which is when the winds are closer to shore, but only in the afternoon when the land is hotter.  The air moves from the cooler waters towards the shoreline, and results in a shorter swell period:

Thursday and Friday Lisa’s before work routine was at the dog walking stage.  She sends me a picture of the ocean but today it was a video.  The slow and deliberate water movement was evident, but overall it looked reasonable flat.  Working from home meant it was a three minute walk to jump in, and while it was looking meh I decided to do it.  The most prolific fish I saw was the above Western Striped Cardinalfish (Ostorhinchus victoriae).  Usually a nocturnal species but out today in greater numbers and larger sizes than I would normally expect:

I have discovered the scientific species name comes from Victoria Settlement in the Northern Territory, which was established 1838 and named after Queen Victoria.  Proposed to be a strategic port for trade, it was not as successful as hoped and only remained operation for eleven years.  What’s strange about all this is that the Western Striped Cardinalfish range only extends along the western coast.  A different species called the Striped Cardinalfish (Ostorhinchus fasciatus) is found along the northern coastline, including Victoria Settlement:

In my second image I got to see a very majestic full sized adult Southern Eagle Ray (Myliobatis tenuicaudatus), I spotted it in the gloominess and started to follow it out to sea.  Gliding with intent, but no great purpose, away from me.  This species is named after its whip-like tail, from the Latin tenuis and caudatus meaning thin or slender and tailed.  They can have a variable pattern of greyish-blue spots and bars, and this one was displaying a very clear and beautiful pattern.  So while not a clear it is the best image I got, as it lured me further out:

I eventually stopped following it, and only then realised just how far out I had gone.  Without the ray to focus on suddenly I felt a tad lonely out there, so made my way back to shallower waters where the bottom was at least visible.  A couple of images above is a collection of not two, but three Razor Clam (Pinna bicolor).  You’ll need to look hard to see the third.  These are like icebergs.  They can reach a ripe old age of eighteen years and while the shells can reach fifty centimetres in length, I usually see no more than five centimetres above the surface:

Two images up, as I was wrapping up my first snorkel, I came across a lovely Masked Stingaree (Trygonoptera personata).  Diving down to say hello, it wriggled about to bury itself a little deeper in the weed, kicking up a heap of sediment.  This along with the low amount of light making it down that far made the chance of a close up image impossible.  It is a little surprising at times how gloomy it can be, when there is a clear blue sky.  That said it was worth going in just to cool down.  And on my second swim I was rewarded by seeing another handsome stripy friend, a Western Talma (Chelmonops curiosus):

I couldn’t make my mind up as to what to do today, a swim was inevitable but where to go.  Part of me was not too keen to go too far along the beach, maybe feeling a little weary from yesterday.  However, if the conditions were like yesterday then it could be pretty good round the more intact reef system.  Eventually I plumped for a walk past the point.  Thinking that I have enough days sat at a computer coming up at working next week, so a stretch and swim would be good.  And I am glad I did:

My first find was the above strange looking creature, of which I found three.  I knew it was a sea cucumber but have never seen this sort before.  I think it may be a Snot Sea Cucumber (Leptosynapta dolabrifera), and you may well be thinking I am making that name up but I’m not.  These creatures have a transparent body, which this did.  They burrow into the sand using the tentacles round its mouth to draw in sand, which is probably why I have seen them before.  The Rough Sea Cucumber (Australostichopus mollis) also has tentacles:

However, I’ve always found Rough Sea Cucumber as they are resting up in the daytime, tucked up tightly in some nook.  The tentacles have therefore not been visible before and today I also didn’t get to see them as this one was feeding.  It’s mouth stuck in the sand with the tentacles busy pulling sand in.  What I really liked was seeing the hundreds of tiny tube feet, which like the tentacles are out of sight when they are resting up.  In fact I didn’t even realise they had feet until now.  The dive had started well and I had picked a good spot:

Plenty of fish were about, but I wasn’t in the chasing mood today.  I spent a fair bit of time in the reef where the water was shallow, peering down into the caves below.  Lots of Old Wife (Enoplosus armatus) were hiding in these, but not keen to be photographed.  Instead we had a face off each time I got too close, making them look very skinny.  Here I also came across some more accessible Zimmers Sea Fan (Mopsella Zimmeri), so took a close up to allow you to see the polyps filtering the water to catch zooplankton with their eight tentacles:

In addition to the creatures I have recently seen out in the daytime, when they are normally hidden away, I also came across a tiny green worm.  It was clinging to a rock and I tried to get a clear image, but the swell was having none of it.  As the worm clung on I drifted away.  Being in shallow water above the reef, I was pleasantly surprised at how many fish passed in front of me.  For the most part I just watched and also had a laugh when I had to give way to this never ending highway of Western Striped Grunter (Helotes octolineatus):

Despite spending over an hour in the water, on the walk back I went in for another quarter of an hour.  This was to say hello to Lumpy a forty year old Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops truncatus).  She lives between Bunbury and Peppermint Grove Beach, which approximates to their normal range of approx. twenty five kilometres.  She is one of the oldest known dolphins of the local population and enjoys interacting with humans and animals alike.  So despite the stingers and feeling a bit cold I simply had to jump back in to have a swim with her:

Dumping my gear out of the car after my morning climb, which I only did to test drive the car (not), I felt the need to get my head under water.  The images of our local beach that Lisa had sent me this morning, while I was climbing, looked great but I also knew the winds would shift round fairly soon.  It seems that she and I think alike.  Having sent me the images because she thought I would be pondering whether to go in the water off the cliffs.  Lisa was right, and I was almost sold prepared to risk getting in between sets of the swell:

Walking down to the beach it was no longer flat, but the water still looked fairly clear.  Clear enough to see the few stingers that were still battling the increasingly less calm upper surface, and also the above school of juvenile Bluespotted Goatfish (Upeneichthys vlamingii).  I see the adult of these fish on almost every dive, but rarely include images of them.  They check for food in the sand using sensory barbels, located on their chin.  Despite trying multiple times to sneaking up on them, as they are foraging in the sand, the adults never hang about:

The juveniles seemed less skittish allowing me to get a bit closer to them, but being smaller the yellow barbels are not visible in the images.  The open sandy areas were starting to get a bit more churned up, but I spent a fair bit of time there as it was filled with lots of unidentified juvenile fish.  Another creature I usually fail at getting too close to before they hide in their homes, are Hermit Crabs (Paguroidea).  I saw quite a few today in the reef, thinking the black eyes on luminescent orange stalks would make it possible to identify them, but alas not:

Back in the sandy bay, and as I was heading towards the shore, I spotted something I have been hoping to see for a few years now.  I’ve only seen a group of juvenile Striped Catfish (Plotosus lineatus) a few times, and they are great to observe.  I do not recall ever seeing an adult but the juveniles are the fun ones.  They can form a dense school of hundreds of fish, packed tightly together in a ball.  Then as they move close to a feature, which could be a reef or clump of weed, they form a shape that resembles it:

Even when the mass of fish is pushed about by the swell they somehow manage to stay together.  I spent a heap of time watching them and took this short video to show them in action.  Due to the changing wind, the detritus previously on the bottom was starting to lift into the water column, and I struggled to stay still.  So the focus in this clip isn’t the best at times, but it will give you any idea of why I can spend quiet a lot of time watching them do what they do:

Very happy with my last find I left the Striped Catfish behind, only to spot a Granulated Pebble Crab (Leucosia pubescens).  You might be forgiven for thinking it was on dry land from this image, but it was wandering along the seabed.  This is my first sighting and they are very different from the crabs I normal see, including being much smaller.  The shell being no more than three centimetres across.  Many species of pebble crabs, like most crabs, are nocturnal burying themselves under the sea bed during the day.  Luckily for me this one was out and about: