Trevally Day

22/2/2017 (614)

A dive at Goat Island after almost a week of rain. It seems a lot of dirt from farmland around got into water. There patches of it on the coarse sandy bottom … especially close to the shore. Visibility improved a lot in deeper water, but it was not great.

I met a big school of trevally that did not want to leave me. So I landed on a patch of the flat bottom among kelp covered rocks and spent a good half of the dive watching and photographing them. Sometimes kahawai and sweeps joined them. Big snappers were trying to chase them away … obviously they expected my attention.

On my way back to the shore I played a bit with a friendly kelpfish.

The sea looked quite calm from the carpark, yet underwater it was moving a lot … actually it was really unpleasant.

Slovak

Ponor pri Goat Island po takmer týždni dažďa. Vyzerá to tak, že z pasienkov naokolo sa dostalo do mora dosť pôdy. Na dne, hlavne pri prehu v plytkej vode, boli plochy, kde sa jemné bahno pohybovalo nad hrubým pieskovým dnom. V hlbšej vode sa viditeľnosť zlepšila, ale aj tak žiadna sláva.

Naďabil som na veľké stádo trevally, ktoré sa so mno nechcelo rozlúčiť. Tak som si ľahol na pieskove dno medzi skalami a strávil ich pozorovaním a fotografovaním asi polovicu ponoru. Občas sa k nim pridali kahawai alebo sweeps. Veľké snapper sa pokúšali stádo rozohnať … zrejme sa im nepáčilo, že nevenujem pozornosť im.

Cestou k brehu som sa ešte chvíľu zabával s priateľskou kelpfish.

Inak z parkoviska vyzeralo more dosť pokojné, ale pod hladinou to bolo až nepríjemné, ako to so mnou zametalo.

School of trevally above flat coarse sand bottom.

Lonely snapper Pagrus auratus swimming in corridor between two kelp walls.

Wall of brown kelp Ecklonia radiata following water movements.

Friendly kelpfish resting on brown frond.