With Flashlights In Mahurangi Harbour

Mahurangi Harbour after a week:
* With working flashlights 🙂
* At low tide so in very dirty water
* Very sad state of the bottom observed … fine sediment everywhere, pests spreading, original fauna/flora disappearing
The pictures are not of a great value, but they document the current state of Otarawao/Sullivans Bay.

Testing flashlights: Last time my flashlights did not work so this time I wanted to be sure 🙂

A piece of wood protruding from silty bottom: It is inhabited by a Mediterranean fan worm and tunicates. The yellow “somethings” further down are nudibranch egg clusters.

A small rock with red encrusting sponge. Two specimen of Dendrodoris nigra are perhaps feeding on the sponge?

Finally I found a rock with yellow boring sponge. These sponges used to be very frequent in the harbour, often visible from the surface. On the other hand the fan worms are spreading, it is becoming very difficult to find a solid surface without a specimen.

Tiny, but beautiful purple sponges. The sponge must have an ability to clean its surfaces, these particular individuals were completely without sediment.

The usual spiny sand sea star. After seeing them so many times I still cannot believe how fast they can move over the bottom.

The only piece of shallow water brown algae I saw during the whole dive.

A hole in the muddy bottom.

A mound of “poo” with a specimen of club tunicate in the background.