Maitland Bay (18th February '07)

Bitten by the snorkelling bug I headed up to the central coast, south of Gosford, on Sunday to the secluded beach at Maitland Bay. The kilometre walk from the carpark to the beach through bushland helps to keep the numbers of visitors down and apart from a handful of boats and their passengers the place was pretty empty.

We spent several hours snorkelling and saw a load of top stuff. Unlike Little Bay last weekend, this was more open ocean and much deeper water. There was also a lot more weed on the seabed which the fish liked to hide in so viewing them was maybe a little harder. There were, however, many more larger fish and it seemed the further you were willing to head out to sea, the better the action! When you're a couple hundred metres from shore in the open ocean though I tend to get a bit wary.

We saw several stingrays over the sand and various large fish in the rocky areas as well as all the usual little stripey ones. There were also loads of wee jellyfish that looked like teabags with coloured lights moving up and down their bodies! Amazing. Luckily they didn't sting because there were thousands of them. The highlights of the day, however, were the many Fiddler Rays or Banjo Sharks (Trygonorrhina fasciata) which were lying around sometimes in groups of up to four at a time. These beautiful fish were over a metre long and really quite spectacular. Unfortunately we didn't have a camera with us this week but check out the pictures here courtesy of the Australian museum. I also came face to face with my first proper shark! Unlike every other fish in the sea, which tend to swim the other way, this thing decided to approach me. It was only small, maybe just over 2 feet long, but it still freaked me out a bit and it was time for a sharp exit!

Little Bay (11th February '07)

Footie update: We stopped a two game losing streak with a 2-2 draw last night against a team calling themselves Band of Orange. There seem to be several sides in the competition who play in Dutch national shirts and these were another example. I managed to open my goal-scoring account with the late equaliser too. A sweet side-on volley after a shot had come crashing back off the crossbar. I'm slowly getting back into it but I'm still pretty shabby!

After last week's adventures at Wattamolla I went down to the shops and bought myself a snorkel, mask and fins and on Sunday they got their first outing at Little Bay which is one of Sydney's southerly ocean beaches. I was a bit apprehensive after last week's blue-bottle attacks and the fact that there's a 5m great white shark patrolling Sydney's beaches at the moment. Its been around for about 3 weeks now and they keep closing beaches as it keeps popping up here and there. Its apparently getting a bit more confident around boats and things too!

Fishy fishy

Little Bay is quite well sheltered though and despite choppy conditions out at sea the water in the bay was calm and clear and absolutely teeming with fish. There were no really big things about but lots of colourful smaller fish including a few spectacular wrasse. There was a nice bait ball and small shoals of sand whiting, bream, garfish and cuttlefish as well as loads of stripy things which I don't know. Quite remarkable for a little beach right in the city.

A particularly well camouflaged flathead

Wattamolla (4th February '07)

On Sunday a load of us headed down to Wattamolla in the Royal NP for Sneaky Pete's birthday. We had a bit of a barbie, threw a ball around and most people got into the sea for a spot of snorkelling. The lads managed to spot a few stingrays and also a cracking 2m wobbegong shark.

Stingray

Sh..sh..sh..sh..SHARK!

Things were going very well until a horde of marauding blue-bottles (Portugese men-o'-war to you and me) entered the bay and proceeded to attack my friends. It was just as well I hadn't entered the water yet.

Pete gets friendly with the marine life

That's the way to do it here in Australia I reckon. Wait a while for your mates to go test the water and see what's about. If there's something in there, they'll find it first! Anyway, most people were stung a wee bit but unfortunately the birthday boy copped a big one right in the face! Unpleasant business but hopefully he's feeling a load better now.

Ouch! Happy birthday Sneaks!

Underwater photography courtesy of Allan (The Dane) Larsen