Dive Report: Jones Bay

Friday 10 Mar
HT 10:20
Wind N, 15 kts
Cloudy rainy
Waves 1m
80 min bottom time
10m max depth

At 9:15 am I walked along the beach from the carpark and disturbed two well camouflaged Reef heron roosting on the stones. I set off east from the end of the predator exclusion fence. I was pleased to find subtidal seagrass at 4m pretty quickly. It was a decent meadow running parallel to the beach. I noted the rhodoliths everywhere which became denser as I headed further east.

I saw a few juvenile goatfish and maybe a juvenile snapper but not much fish life. An octopus had made an impressive home and walled itself in with rocks. I also saw one juvenile octopus in a dead horse mussel.

At 10m I came across a few small boulders with ecklonia growing on them. Under one of the kelp plants a blade stood out to me, mostly because of this video. I had never seen a weedfish before and it was just a magical little fish. I spent the rest of my dive with it until I nearly ran out of air. It would go up into the kelp and then come out and hang out on the seafloor. Here it lay on its side a lot and drifted around just like kelp in an invisible current. It drunkenly walked around on its fins. It was magical to watch. It showed very minimal aversion to me, my bubbles and my giant light. I was able to get very close and it also swam straight at the lens twice. I took about 100 photos :D

Posted on Μάρτιος 10, 2023 0249 ΠΜ by shaun-lee