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:

With a full moon looming tonight, when the gravitational pull of both the sun and moon gang up on us, the tides have been gradually getting bigger.  To be fair the tidal range doesn’t change all that much where we are, but with a lower than normal low tide much of the reef was poking above the waterline.  Sadly the winds have been whipping up each afternoon.  Therefore, while the water looked flat and the sun didn’t have to contend with a single cloud in the sky, the visibility wasn’t wonderful:

This post will include images from two trips out that way.  During the initial swim out I came across a few reasonable schools of Western Striped Grunter (Helotes octolineatus), Grey Drummer (Kyphosus bigibbus), and Australian Herring (Arripis georgianus).  But once out at the bommies, caves, and ledges, life on the reef became relatively quiet.  I was however happy to see a Southern Garfish (Hyporhamphus melanochir), even if it was a single fish.  this fish that can often be seen swimming just under the surface, where it is catches insects:

I also spotted a sandy area littered with egg sacs from Lugworms (Arenicola marina).  The worms themselves have alluded me, but their casts are always evident.  They create U shaped borrows by sucking sand in through their mouth and excreting it out in the form of cast.  So like Sea Cucumbers they vacuum the sea bed and help to maintain a healthy ecosystem.  From these borrows the female Lugworms will also create these balloon like jelly sacs, which becomes a nursery for her fertilised eggs.  The bags are attached at one end so sway about with the swell:

Another find on the sandy bed was this Cone Shell.  Globally there are approx. 600 species, with a quarter of them being found in Australian waters.  It is a shame I didn’t get a better image, but the pattern looks akin to Geography Cone (Conus geographus).  Found widely in the waters round northern Australia, and as afar down the west coast as approx. Geraldton.  Although with warming temperatures it could possibly have made its way further down.  Regardless of which one I found it was wise to steer clear of it, as their sting can be fatal:

With the full moon tonight the low tide had crept as low as it would go before it once again commences its upward journey.  Sadly the wind was blowing a hooley yesterday afternoon.  Lisa advised me that there were ‘proper’ waves off Peppy Beach when she and her fellow plungers went for an early evening dip.  In addition as I walked out in the morning the banks of clouds were out to sea, with their wispy edges fingering their way towards the sun.  Despite a potentially sediment ladened water column and limited light I kept walking:

My destination being a part of the reef where the bommies were taller, standing above the seabed five to six meter down.  As the strength of the sun fluctuated in response to the movement of the clouds, my vision was not always able to penetrate the water to the side and also below me.  It would have been enough to put most people off.  However, like when I climb you need to be able to control your fear or miss out.  Not that there was a whole heap to miss out on today:

In-between diving down to check ledges and caves, a few of the familiar fish I see dart about in the kelp covering the bommies kept me occupied.  The kelp forests of the southwest is extremely important to the ecosystem of our local waters.  Providing the main food source for the marine food web, but also an important habitat for many species of both fish and marine animals.  Such a great habitat that it can be near impossible to see what lies beneath, so I have to be quick to take a snap when a fish pops it head up:

Two images above is Herring Cale (Olisthops cyanomelas), with a nice close up showing the a brown body and blue dots making me think this fish may be transitioning from being a female to a male.  And above another nice close up of what I believe to be a juvenile Castelnau’s Wrasse (Dotalabrus aurantiacus).  The bright green with black flecks hinting I could be right.  The last image is of a Bigscale Bullseye (Pempheris multiradiata), one I could easily creep up on to get the image, as it has either had a scuffle or has been infected such that it has lost sight in one eye:

In theory I would have arrived back on dry land yesterday, after sailing in the Bass Strait and climbing on Deal Island.  Instead I’m still, surprisingly, enjoying three weeks off work while staying at home.  With no trips planned or taken other than some local jaunts.  Lisa is equally bemused by my lack of tetchiness and hankering to get outdoors and do stuff, and both she and I were concerned this may have been an issue.  It has helped that I have had the occasional mornings out on rock, and also that the conditions have been reasonable for frequent snorkels.  I have also used the time at home to reset my indoor climbing wall:

It seems that resetting my wall occurs by default approx. every three years.  Within half an hour placing the last hold, Lisa’s Facebook sent her a “memory” from six years back to the day.  Which was when my wall was first completed and ready for a climb, although the second resetting project was not exactly three years in, it wasn’t too far off.  Doing it myself this time was a mammoth fifteen plus hour task.  I had split the task over quite a few early mornings, before the shed heated up like an oven.  Mornings selected based on whether the water conditions were inviting me in or not.  The water has been inviting some mornings, although it has at times also been deceptive:

The first two images are the only ones I have kept from my near hour long swim off the beach from the Capel River mouth.  The water looked reasonable but a combination of wind, swell, and cloud made it not so great.  The first picture is of Finger Zoanthid (Zoanthus praelongus), which for some reason reminds me of a fictional creature in the 2005 King Kong film.  They were giant slugs, called Carnictis, but the mouth looks very vaguely like the Finger Zoanthid when its tentacles are out.  This generally occurs at night, when they draw in plankton and particulate matter from the water column.  Some Zoanthid species have however, like Carnictis, been observed to eat meaty foods for example krill and bloodworms:

The second image was of a Troughtons seastar (Pseudonepanthia troughtoni), easily identified by the skin texture and colour.  One that is endemic to the coastline of southern Australia and Tasmania, but I can find very little information about it.  Although the Museum of Victoria claims it is rarely seen and little is known of its biology.  The image above and the next two are from a different swim this time off our local beach.  Lisa later advised me I was in the water when a 1.5m unidentified shark was observed swimming northward along our beach.  I wonder if that is why the Rescue Helicopter was flying as low and slow as it was, but sadly I didn’t see the shark.  I did however see theses European Fan Worm (Sabella spallanzani):

It has many different common names, and as the name I have used suggests it is an invasive species.  Being first observed in Albany in 1965.  Probably brought in on the hull of ships, and having now spread round much of the southern coast and also up the west and east coast.  Based on molecular data, research indicates the spread of the species along the Australian coast all originated from that single introduction in Western Australia.  On the plus side there do not seem to be any impacts, other than possibly interfering with nutrient cycles where dense colonies exists.  However, as I have alluded to enough times we manage to interfere to a far greater extent when it comes to nutrient cycles both in waterways and the ocean:

To the left of the above image is Red-mouthed Ascidian (Herdmania grandis).  My reason for including the image, was because Dan had read up on these creature after reading a past post of mine, and found out that they eat their own brain.  This is not entirely true.  To reproduce they release sperm and eggs into the water, and fertilised eggs then become a larvae that resembles a tadpole.  The wriggling movement of this larvae is controlled by the cerebral ganglion, which forms a basic brain.  As the adult is a sessile creature, attaching to a substrata, the “brain” becomes redundant when the larvae transforms into its adult form.  As such the brain along with other body parts are absorbed, so it is kind of eaten:

The above and next few mages are from a far more successful snorkel that was past “The Point”.  To get here it is a short one kilometre plus walk from the River Mouth carpark, and a place I should go to more regularly.  With way more intact reef and as such far more places to explore.  Where I went in the reef was approx. 200m out and the water swimming out was murky, but once at the reef things cleared up nicely.  On the way out I spotted yet another Flathead, of which there are some sixty odd species in Western Australia.  This one being the Southern Bluespotted Flathead (Platycephalus speculator):

I’ve not included the best image, which was just before it decided to get away from me.  But this image does however clearly show the black spots surrounded by white on the caudal fins, as well as the dusky brown blotches on the pelvic and caudal fins.  Which is how I was able to identify this species with confidence, but not without a fair bit of checking out the different species.  My next sight was another Cobbler Wobbegong (Sutorectus tentaculatus), but much smaller than the adult I recently spotted.  They tend to sleep during the day.  But this one did not have a very secure position, and the swell was pushing it about.  I watched as it was tumbled over the reef and eventually found a place under the weed to rest up:

With heaps of places to dive down too, I didn’t find any other big fish resting up for the day.  But did enjoy checking out the Zimmers Sea Fan (Mopsella Zimmeri), which can be found in various colours of red, yellow, white and orange.  This coral creates a rigid and flat fan shape, that resembles a tree and can be as big as one and half meters tall.  These were sadly tiny in comparison.  The polyps, which are the living part of the coral, create the structure by secreting a calcareous sclerites.  A fancy name for plates that form an exoskeleton.  The polyps then live in this structure and pop out from the branches, extending their eight tentacles into the water to capture zooplankton:

The polyps can be seen sticking out all along the branches in the above image, looking like leaves on a tree.  During this dive I was lucky to spot two Blackspotted Catshark (Aulohalaelurus labiosus) on separate occasions.  There twenty to thirty species of Catshark in Western Australia, but this is the only species I have been lucky enough to come across.  Being an endemic species to the south-western Western Australia it is a nocturnal fish, so I was lucky to see them out and about and took this video as one of them swam below me.  They do not grow too big only reaching a couple of feet in length, so this one with be an adult:

The last image is from another not so great dive off our local beach, of a white sea anemone that I have not identified with a small crab lurking in the background.  The reason for including one more image is however to allow me room in this post to confess that I had incorrectly identified the large mollusc I recently saw.  It was not a Giant Triton (Charonia tritonis), but a Giant Conch (Syrinx aruanus).  The former having a pattern on the mustard yellow foot, and the latter not.  It did mean that I had found what is reported as being the world’s largest living snail reaching close to a meter in length.  But it does not feed on Crown-of-Thorns Starfish but polychaete tube worms:

Despite seeing the New Year in, my body clock wouldn’t allow a lie in.  So bright and early Lisa was off for a walk with the poodles and I went for a dip at my usual spot.  In contrast to yesterday’s hustle and bustle on the shore and in the water off Castle Rock beach, our beach was practically deserted.  A school of Weeping Toadfish (Torquigener pleurogramma) escorted me from the sand and over the reef.  After wondering whether I see many fish from different orders, these are from the Tetraodontiformes order:

The common name for this order being puffer fishes, some of which are poisonous.  This includes the Weeping Toadfish and it is not a fish to be eaten by humans or pets.  Like our beach the water was relatively quiet, and I didn’t see too much that was out of the ordinary.  Although during one of my descents to the sea floor, I spotted the creature below that was an inch and a half long at the most.  I wondered if it was a limb that had been detached from a sea star, but the shape does not look right.  It may be a Bristle Worm (Polychaetes):

The images I got simply were not good enough to conclusively identify it, and there are no obvious matches from my searches online.  My pictures of the following ray were however good enough for me to work out that this was a Sparsely-spotted Stingaree (Urolophus paucimaculatus).  In the image below it has a light coating of sand over it, but watching it glide away the dark edging round the tail fin was evident.  They are all along southern Australia but the populations in the west do not usually display the spots from which it gets it name:

Today came in a bit cloudy, which meant the visibility could be a bit rubbish.  As such I headed to Wave Walk, where the reef comes in close to the shoreline and the water is shallow.  My theory being that with reduced light I’d still be able to see OK.  Unfortunately while the swell was slight, it seemed to be enough to mobilise the sand and it really wasn’t much cop.  But once in there was no point in getting straight out and I scoured the reef, where I literally bumped into huge pockets of Comb Jellies (Ctenophores):

These do not have stingers, but some species are still voracious predators.  Preying on other jellies, with some comb jellies able to expand their stomachs to half their size to enable them to absorb their prey.  I was about to head back in when during my last intended duck dive I spotted another flathead.  Thinking it was probably the same species as the one I found off the river mouth beach.  However, the dark band, a bit like war paint, across the eyes had me wondering.  And it was different being a Longhead Flathead (Leviprora inops):

I popped my head up to see which way the beach was.  Being a little disoriented due to it being pretty murky, so much so that it was hard to see what was below me or indeed what may be off to the side.  A couple were standing on the beach looking out, directly towards me.  So I did a quick 360 degree scan and saw a fin pop up just a few meters away.  I watched it and no caudal (tail) fin followed the dorsal fin.  That told me it was likely to be a dolphin, as their caudal fin is horizontal.  So I started to breathe easy again:

Despite being really close and getting a great view of the Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops aduncus) and it’s calf, this was the best image I could get.  The two of them went up and down in unison, like synchronised swimmers.  Circling round me but not making any obvious moves to swim away.  Eventually they started along the coast and even though they were swimming at what looked to be a very leisurely I had no hope of keeping up.  Soon enough they were out of sight and I was alone again in the gloomy water:

So I thought.  In trying to swim after the dolphins I had gone out a bit deeper and the water looked to clear up.  Enough to see the seabed where I spied another ray.  The markings had me intrigued and sure enough it was yet another species being a Masked Stingaree (Trygonoptera personata).  Unlike the Sparsely-spotted Stingaree this one had its namesake markings over the eyes, with another dark mark centred on the disc.  It is also endemic to Southwestern Australia between, with Geographe Bay being its most southerly range:

With renewed enthusiasm I checked out the reef, which was further out but started to shallow.  I spotted more fish all too quick for me take any images, so I just watched them including what I though may have been a spectacular Senator Wrasse (Pictilabrus laticlavius).  Sadly I have no evidence, so instead here is an image of yet another near full size one meter long Dusky Morwong (Dactylophora nigricans).  These fish have been reported to get used to humans to the point they will let you get quite close, which this one certainly did much to my delight:

One last find to report, and another slow moving one that allowed me to go down and take lots of images.  I was drawn by the large shell, from which a yellow foot of a mollusc came out.  Attached to the upper surface of the foot the operculum was clearly visible.  A bit like a trapdoor used to full seal it’s protective house when the mollusc retracts inside the shell.  The shell had a bit of an ecosystem living on it.  Various weeds growing out of detritus stuck on the shell, and a Six-armed Cushion Star (Meridiastra gunnii) hitching a ride.  Based on the shell shape this looked to be a Giant Triton Snail (Charonia tritonis), one of the largest marine snails reaching up to two feet in length:

This one was probably half that size, but a great find.  The unseen shell has a beautiful pattern and was highly sought after, to the point the snail became rare and endangered so it is now protected.  These snails feed on Crown-of-Thorns Starfish (Acanthaster planci), which are a naturally found species on the great barrier reef but can kill ninety percent of the reef they live on.  As such a Giant Triton Snail breading program was initiated for the great barrier reef. In the hope it would keep in check the number of Crown-of-Thorns Starfish, and the impact they were having on an already struggling coral reef, by increasing the numbers of this protector of the reef. I’ve since worked out that this was a Giant Conch (Syrinx aruanus), but I liked the facts I found out above so haven’t changed them: