Latest dive at Port Hughes

I returned to the Port Hughes jetty on 22nd March. The viz was poor but I still enjoyed trying out the closeup lens on my camera. The highlight of my dive was being able to film a large catfish. My short video of the 'very yellow' catfish can either be seen below, or on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyeY2QhT5L8. I also saw this amazing sponge crab there.

The April 2009 Leafy Sea Dragon Festival

Photo taken by Neville Skinner

The 3rd Leafy Sea Dragon Festival is being held in SA this month, from 17th to 26th April. Visit http://www.leafyseadragonfestival.com/ for more details. A web page of information provided by the Marine Life Society of SA regarding the leafy seadragon can be seen at http://www.leafyseadragonfestival.com/about.html

Marine Parks submissions

Photo taken by Paul Macdonald

Although submissions re the proposed outer boundaries for 19 marine parks in SA closed on 27th March, you can visit http://www.marineparks.sa.gov.au/ for more details.

New Rapid Bay jetty now opened

Great news! The wait is finally over. After waiting some 4 years, the new jetty at Rapid Bay opened last month (March 2009), much to the delight of fishermen and divers alike. Even better news, the leafy seadragons are still there, along with multitudes of fish and invertebrates. The new jetty is closer to the car park, making access to the jetty much easier. The divers' platform is designed to make entry/exit easy. There are even some great ladders closer to shore. A chain & post trail has now been laid down to guide divers from one jetty to the other when swimming between the old & new jetties. Diving at Rapid Bay should now become more popular than ever before.

Eyes of an octopus

They say that cephalopods such as cuttlefish & octopus have well-developed eyes and acute vision. Despite this, they are said to be colour-blind. A hammer octopus, Octopus australis, is said to darken its eyes to appear bigger to potential predators. The octopus featured in the photo above could be either O.pallidus or O.berrima.

Seaurchins aggregating at Magazine Bay

On 31st December 2007, I made a solo dive at Magazine Bay, near Point Turton. One of the first things that I noticed about the location was that Heliocidaris urchins were to be seen aggregating in large numbers, as shown in these few photos.