Janet, (with her new digital camera), Julian; Gary, (having a brief respite
from the baseball season here); Ralf, (who managed to crawl out of bed
early); and myself, (resplendent in a 'Vicious Fishes' bandanna courtesy of
Chuck), went diving this morning - at Shelly Beach!  :-)))

Visibility was about 30-metres and the water temperature had moved up a
notch since Thursday to 23 deg C..  (On Thursday Dave, Julian and myself,
did an 80-minute dive. I froze my butt off!) :-)

Today we swam around to 'Dragon Patches' - the kelp beds where we usually
see the Weedy Seadragons - on the way we saw a number of wobbegongs nestling
under rock ledges and one small juvenile just resting on the sand.

Acting as a kind of sign-post that we're on the right track, we always see a
large clump of Robust Zoanthids struggling out of the sand.  Looking rather
like a cluster of dark, steely grey sausages they were - for the first time
that I can recall - feeding.  Fine, frondy tentacles extended from the end
of each tube, rather like flowers - or anemones.  :-)

A dozen or so, Lyretailed Gobies danced around one particular rock and out
on the sand we saw the first Seadragon, (actually it was the *only* one that
I saw!  Janet and Julian spotted another one close in to the rocks.)  :-)

Under one rock ledge, a Giant Cuttlefish lay on the sand totally unfazed by
our presence, while a little further along we say several of the smaller
type playing around and between the boulders.

Because of the bandanna, not only was my head warm but none of the fish
tried to attack me.  Even the Humbugs - small, territorial fish that are
usually unafraid to swim up and give me a nip if they feel that I'm
encroaching on their territory - just waved their fins happily at me as I
passed by!  :-)

The nice thing about the digital camera was that - at the end of the dive -
we were able to view the images that Janet had taken.  Some of the wobbegong
shots looked magnificent and she's promised to post them to me once she's
downloaded them.  (If anyone's interested, I'll post them off privately once
I've received them so that you can see what the wobbies look like in placid
mode!)  :-)

We all enjoyed it so much that we're planning yet another 'sparrowfart' dive
early one morning during the week - Ralf's refused to get out of bed early
for that one!  :-)

Strike