I saw lots of salmon during yesterday’s snorkel at Haycock Point yesterday. I wondered just why the salmon were hanging around in such shallow water. They were mostly relaxed in their behaviour, but occasionally seemed to sense something, and then they’d suddenly disappear, even if it meant swimming rapidly from about 3m depth into 1-2m depth. But it might simply be that I was chasing them myself, a bit too fast, occasionally?
The YouTube video clip shows them at double speed heading to shallower water! The significance of this is uncertain, but I followed their example (what’s the saying about discretion and valour? LOL).
There was a shark sighting at Carrickalinga on the previous day, but I think it would just have been a bronze whaler. I didn’t know about that sighting until I finished my nice snorkel, but I was very near to the exact location where I did glimpse a young bronze whaler stalking salmon trout a few years ago, when the viz was even better, so I am joining the dots.
Today I did a solo dive at Second Valley, mainly to test the Fantasea housing for my Canon G7X3, which leaked slightly on the night dive here 9 days ago.No problems today fortunately, after servicing the relevant housing control button. On the night dive 9 days ago, the shutter release button kept jamming in the down position, which was probably from a grain of sand or similar speck of underwater suspension. Maybe I’ll blame the algal bloom! (This fault only started after the bloom was rapidly improving, but who knows?).
Anyway, it was a dive, and not a bad one. Duration was 42 minutes, including a fruitless search on the bottom under the jetty’s outer end for a lady’s wind-blown hat as I was about to exit. Happily, a snorkeller towed by his mate’s kayak found and returned the hat. Maximum depth was 4.2m. The water temperature was around 18deg C. There was no current as it was a dodge tide. There was mild to moderate swell, getting milder as time passed. Horizontal visibility was between 5 and 10m, easily 10m beside outer jetty, but 5-8m under the cutwater due swell surge. The wind was mild to moderate SSW, with drizzle early but almost full sun by my dive’s end.
Immediately before my entry
One highlight of today’s dive was a clingfish (tentative ID Spadenose Clingfish, Cochleoceps spatula). I was impressed with how cryptic it was on the Cystophora stem which seemed to be its home or preferred microhabitat. I don’t think anyone knows what brown algae species they prefer.
I posted my clingfish photo to iNaturalist along with the comments, “Well certainly a Clingfish anyway. It was quite determined to remain on this particular Cystophora stipe, at about the midpoint between (the) entry steps and cutwater i.e. depth about 2.5m.(Bottom depth on the sand beneath the steps was around 3.5 to 4m). I saw no other Clingfish on this dive, and the only definite cleaning behaviour I saw involved a juvenile Moonlighter cleaning sub-adult zebrafish.
I have now changed the tentative ID for the clingfish to Smallfin Clingfish Parvicrepis parvipinnis, as suggested by Ralph Foster. Here is a better photo of the clingfish: –
