Last week-end, Julian, Helen, Sylvia and myself spent a morning at the
beach.  A cold current - one that usually seems to sweep in at this time of
the year - made snorkelling a chilly affair!  But the highlight was swimming
among 20 squid, (the largest about 50 cms in length) that allowed me within
touching distance and stayed with me.  Did I have a camera with me?  No!!!
:-)

Early this morning Julian, Jayne and myself did a dive to the outer reefs.
(Jayne had a new Olympus 5060 digital camera to test and wanted to take pics
of seadragons carrying eggs.)  The water had warmed back up considerably, to
20 deg C. - although it's still got a way to go yet. :-)

In the sand, at the foot of the home reef wall, we saw dozens of juvenile
rays, while overhead were schools of small ladder-fin pomfrets.  Beneath the
ledges at the drop-off was a single wobbegong and little else until we
reached Outer Reef #1 where we spotted - to Jayne's delight five seadragons.
She was so taken with them that she failed to see the beautifully marked
Fiddler ray lying next to her; or the eagle ray perched on its fin tips and
rearing up just a metre or so away! :-)

Among the rocks beyond Deadman's Point we found another large male seadragon
carrying a cluster of eggs;  a large, Small Spined Porcupinefish that's
rarely seen in shallow waters.  We swam among huge schools of mature Ladder
Fin Pomfrets, clusters of seapike, yellowtail, tuna and trevally, and more
ludderick than we've ever seen before. :-)

The groupers came up for their usual, "G'Day" pat and, for a while, we just
sat on a rock watching a large group of lyretailed gobies dance and prance -
until they saw us and scooted into a small hole in the rock face.  There
were starfish, sand whitings, a single estuarine catfish out on the sand and
.. and .. lots of uvver stuff!  :-)

But no squid! Not that it would have made a difference, 'cause I didn't have
a camera with me!  :-(

Even worse, Jayne hadn't mastered all of the many controls on the camera and
was so busy tweeking buttons and knobs that none of the images were any
good!  (She's now gone to read the instruction manual!)  :-)))

Strike