The nice thing about early morning dives is that you can be back in the
office for the start of business.  This morning, Julian, Janet, Gary and
myself dived across the seagrass beds and back along the rock wall that runs
between Fairy Bower and Shelly Beach.

As well as a solitary pipefish, a couple of octopus and numerous small rays,
Gary discovered a very large (about 6 - 7 centimetres long), and gloriously
adorned nudibranch trundling across the sand.  Janet took a great picture of
it that allowed Julian to identify it as a:
"... Species of Cerberilla live in sandy substrates where they burrow
beneath the surface and so are seldom seen. They have a very broad foot and
the cerata are often very long and extremely numerous, arranged in
transverse rows across the body...".  A picture of it can be seen at:
http://www.seaslugforum.net/cerbaffi.htm

(I also managed to find a weight; a shot glass - and rediscovered the large
anchor that we'd found a week or so ago.  I ascended and took some visual
bearings so that we could come back with a boat and recover it at a later
stage!  A large eastern blue grouper swam up to join us and insisted on
being patted and having its chin tickled!) :-)

Along the wall we saw a couple of large, leprous-looking, estuarine catfish;
a snoozing wobbegong, and hidden among the branches of a soft coral, a
minute black-and-white fish and a tiny shrimp.  There were a few feeding
schools of yellowtail as well as some very large seapike that look very
similar to barracuda.

All in all it was an hour well spent and a wonderful start to the day.  :-)

Strike