On Fri, 8 Mar 2002 Mike Wallace <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>> Viv wrote:
>> > > >because I was so jacked off & tired
>>
>> Bob replied:
>> > > Now if Strike or Mike Wallace had said it, I would have been
>> > > more inclined to believe it.  :-)
>>
>> > I would have paid good money to be there and see that. ;-)

>> David Strike wrote:
>> Mate!  My low pain threshold and the fact that I'd attract a
>> mighty smack around the side of my head from Viv when she
>> visits en-route to see you guys, prevents me from saying what
>> I was tempted to! :-)
>
>I'd pay good money to see THAT too!  :-)
>Viv, get a shot of that on video to bring over with ya!

You're Baaaaaaad Muriel!!  If you aint seen the aussie film Muriel's
wedding you won't get that .. but I'm sure you will understand this.
All three of you will be getting a smack ;-)

'jacked off' in kiwispek generally means 'to be totally peeved off about
something' which in my case was work-related so I wanted to get as far away
from the office as possible where they could not ring or email me.

And, I just realised I forgot to mention a spot I snorkeled in during one
of our surface intervals during the Coral Bay trip... so yes Bob, there's
more :-)

Oyster Ridge sticks out like a bent arm off the beach north of Mauds
Landing.  Its deepest point is about 4 metres now and while checking out
some of the small coral outcrops I spied a horrible sight - a titan
triggerfish. That makes only my second sighting of this type of trigger in
my 13yrs of diving the southern end of the Ningaloo Reef.  I followed it
around a bit to see if there were more of these *bities* and it looked like
this one was on its lonesome.  Seen some very nasty injuries on many an
innocent diver who just happened to be in the vacinity of a titan
triggerfish nest :-(

I worked my way a long the reef wall that was absolutely loaded with
oysters and discovered 3 different types of anemonefish had moved in and
they were all trying to take over the same coral head ... so a bit of
competition for space there.  Originally this area would be absolutely
wrecked with the movement of the sand during high tide but in the last
couple of years the sand has been sucked out so there are nice broad ledges
where sponges and unusual corals have managed to take hold on the walls
underneath. Also a good spot for sea hares and sparkly white cowrie shells.

I snorkeled over in to the shallows to check out a large ball of flashing
silver juvenile fish and came across a pair of shovelnose rays lying
quietly behind them.  I was spitting chips I did not have the camera as
this would have been a fantastic natural light shot. The larger ray
shuffled away a couple of metres settling down flicking a bit of sand over
it.  I was about 2 metres away from the smaller ray so I slowly crept side
ways moving behind it to see what it would do.  Because it could not see me
it started to shuffle itself around until it had eye contact with me
again.  I moved slightly out of its line of sight and it again shuffled
every so gently around to make sure it could see what I was up to.
I told the dive shop about my sighting and they were very interested in
going back to the oyster lagoon to see this pair of rays as some baby
shovelnose rays had started appearing along the shoreline where the boats
moor surprising most locals as this is a first.

I recall one year having the most fun with a large school of squid that had
taken a fancy to one of the charter catamarans... another first that has
never yet happened again.  If you were patient & slowly worked your way
along the catamarans mooring ropes the squid would not panic and allowed
you to get quite close to check out their amazing colour changes when they
moved from the shaded area of the boat & then out in to the open. You then
could hardly see them if it wasnt for their amazing reflective eyes.

Reminds me of another time when a lone dugong turned up in the boat passage
off of Emma's Patch dive site.  We were very worried that some idjit would
run right over it with their props so we snorkeled around it trying to
gently herd it out and around a coral reef to get it safely for now out in
the marine sanctuary area.  I have never seen a dugong since then, which is
quite a shame considering we have a area set aside as a dugong sanctuary
about 4 kilometres north of Coral Bay.  Oh, well .. that's life I guess ..
you just have to be in the right place at the right time of the year to see
these one-offs.  Hopefully this year the whaleshark season will be bigger,
better and start early as it was pretty poor sightings last year.  Grave
concerns here that whalesharks are now being targeted for the whale meat
market in lieu of shark fins :-(
Viv