04/10/2011 10.29 Pt Lonsdale Rockpools

Tide:  Low

Wind: Southerly

Conditions: ????

Bottom Type: rocky reef

Details:  I’d just ordered a 1.4x tamron extender, so thought i’d see how it went on the 60mm for some supermacro work.

Camera Details: Canon 60mm 1.4x

Photos:

27/09/2011 18.50 Pt Lonsdale

Tide:  Low

Wind: ???

Conditions: ????

Bottom Type: rockpools

Details: A nudibranch search at the rockpools. Some mullet around also.

Camera Details: Canon 100mm

Photos:

17/09/2011 11  Point Lonsdale

Tide:  ???

Wind: Southerly??

Conditions: ????

Bottom Type: rocky reefs

Details:  Missed the tides..so just tried to shoot this goby.

Camera Details: Canon 60mm

Photos:

04/09/2011 10.20 Point Lonsdale

Tide:  low tide

Wind: Southerly???

Conditions: ????

Bottom Type: rockpools, inner shelf

Bottom Time: 1hr

Details:  Another snorkel to photograph nudis.

Camera Details: Canon 100mm

Photos:

03/09/2011 10.20 Point Lonsdale

Tide:  low tide

Wind: Southerly???

Conditions: ????

Bottom Type: rockpools, inner shelf

Bottom Time: 1hr

Details:  A snorkel to photograph nudis.

Camera Details: Canon 100mm

Photos:

20/08/2011 11.15 Pt Lonsdale

Tide:  low tide at heads

Wind: Southerly???

Conditions: ????

Bottom Type: rockpools

Bottom Time: 60 minutes

Details:  Some under-overs down at Pt Lonsdale Lighthouse and a pycnogonid (seaspider) floating mid water.

Camera Details: Tokina 10-17mm , single SS200 strobe.

Photos:

21/05/2011 9.30 Pt Lonsdale

Tide: 1.5hr after 0.20 low tide at heads

Wind: Southerly???

Conditions: cold overcast morning.

Bottom Type: rockpools

Bottom Time: 40 minutes

Details:  Its been ages since i’d snorkelled at the rockpools.  Trev was already busily photographying when i arrived, and had already visited the surfclub rockpools. I spotted about 8 species of nudi  today but nothing new or particularly interesting.  I had a small leak (camera housing i mean : P) so ended the dive prematurely.

Photographed below are a Hermaea sp and polycera parvula.

Camera Details: Canon 100mm , single SS200 strobe.

02/02/2011 18.30 Pt Lonsdale

Tide: 0.5hr after 0.34 low tide at heads

Wind: Southerly???

Conditions: I was suprised to see that the water was nearly spilling into the pools when i arrived, despite fairly low swell. Water was of good clarity though. I ended up getting a good hour in as the water seemed to subside without innundating.

Bottom Type: rockpools

Bottom Time: 60 minutes

Details: I just got a wet diopter so i wanted to give it a try. Again it was a quiet evening for nudi’s…they just dont seem to like an evening feed lately. I think i saw maybe 3 or 4 species. One was a species i hadn’t seen before, but not all that impressive. I went for a snorkel outside the pools and there were alot of larger fish around, and some smaller gobies, weedfish, baitfish etc.  I didn’t expect to see an oil rig when i got out..a surreal experience…it was being shipped out through the heads after repairs.

Camera Details: Canon 100mm , single SS200 strobe + Woody Dioptre.

23/01/2010  18.30  Pt Lonsdale

Tide:  2.5hr before 0.21 low tide at heads

Wind: Southerly???

Conditions: Nice clean water. Seemingly perfect conditions.

Bottom Type:  rockpools

Bottom Time: 60 minutes

Details:  Amazingly quiet on the nudi front. I spent most of the dive looking and not finding a single species. Just before i got out, i spotted a Janolus sp (possibly my most commonly seen species this summer) and a Phyllodesmium serratum. Photos concentrated on thornfish and cleaner shrimp.

Camera Details: Canon 100mm , single SS200 strobe.

04/01/2010  19.09  Pt Lonsdale

Tide:  1hr after 0.24 low tide at heads

Wind: Southerly???

Conditions: Nice clean water.

Bottom Type:  rockpools

Bottom Time: 60 minutes

Details:  A good snorkel with 10+ nudibranchs found. In display order,  Chromodoris alternata, Discodoris Sp, Doris Cameroni, Doto Ostena, Madrella Sanguine, Phyllodesmuim Macphersonae, Phyllodesmuim Serratum, Polycera Janjukia, Tritonia Sp, another undescribed Tritonia Sp9new for me), Rostanga calumus(new for me), and the last yet to be indentified.

Camera Details: Canon 100mm , single SS200 strobe.

Dive Report:

28/12/2010  11.52  Pt Lonsdale

Tide:  0.30 low tide at heads

Wind: Southerly???

Conditions: Water was pretty dirty, and the tide was ripping through shark gully, making it a bad idea to try to cross to mushroom rock. ;)

Bottom Type:  rockpools

Bottom Time: 30 minutes

Details: More strobe issues, so just ambient light shot of a sea spider.

Camera Details: Canon 100mm , single SS200 strobe.

Dive Report:

25/10/2010 19.30 Point Lonsdale

Tide: 0.5hr before 0.26 low tide at the Heads

Conditions: Right on dusk. Pretty good night but a bit windy

Bottom Type: Rockpools

Bottom Time: 30 minutes

Details: I just picked up a new Car…so whats the first thing to do? Go for a snorkel of course. there wasn’t a lot around though, and dual strobes made things fairly clumbsy on a snorkel. 

Camera Details: Canon 100mm , dual SS200 strobe.

Dive Report:

02/10/2010 10.30 Point Lonsdale

Wind: ????

Tide: 0.63 low tide at the Heads

Conditions: A high -low tide din’t give much time in the pools.

Bottom Type: Rockpools

Bottom Time: 60 minutes

Details: usual suspects around..nothing to different.

Camera Details: Canon 100mm , single SS200 strobe.

Dive Report:

30/08/2010 8.30 Point Lonsdale

Wind: ????

Tide: 0.52 low tide at the Heads

Conditions: The water clarity was much better today, still a bit dirty though. Generally a fine morning.

Bottom Type: Rockpools

Bottom Time: 60 minutes

Details: Good numbers again this morning. Mabe 10+ species and flatworm.

Camera Details: Canon 100mm , single SS200 strobe.

Dive Report:

Chromodoris alternata:

Doto Sp???

Elysia furvacauda:

Elysia sp:

Eubranchus sp:

Facelina sp:

Flatworm (unknown):

An Isopod:

Trinchesia sp???

29/08/2010 9.00 Point Lonsdale

Wind: ??????

Tide: 0.49 low tide at the Heads

Conditions: The water clarity was atrocious. The sediments were very dilluted in the water making it very opaque. The worst i’ve seen it in the rockpools.

Bottom Type: Rockpools

Bottom Time: 60 minutes

Details: Despite the poor water clarity, the diversity and numbers of nudi’s were fantastic. I saw at least 15 species and their were multiples of many species. Also saw a strange polyceate worm.

Camera Details: Canon 100mm , single SS200 strobe.

Dive Report: The best snorkel i’ve done at the rockpools in the last 6 months. The weed has recovered and lost of nudi’s feasting on the brown algae. Very grooty water though.

Doto sp.:

Chromodoris alternata:

Ceratosoma amoenum:

Facelina sp.:

Digidentis perplexa:

Eubranchus sp.:

Facelina sp.:

Tritonia Sp:

Polychaete Worm – Nereididae family

01/06/2010 8.15 Point Lonsdale

Wind: Light Winds

Tide: 0.32 low tide at the Heads

Conditions: First day of winter. Still morning.

Bottom Type: Rockpools

Bottom Time: 90 minutes

Details: The rockpools are back on! Nudi’s everywhere. The weed is still looking very miserable, but i counted at least 10 species this morning, and there was little searching time between finds. Lots of subbies around (sub-10mm nudi’s)

Camera Details: Canon 100mm , single SS200 strobe.

Dive Report: Some people can find nudibranchs from land by peering into the water. I’ve never been one of those people, but this morning, just before i got into the water i saw a large pink form. I turned out to be a large, strange , colorful blob called a Lamellarian.. (thanks for the ID Trev!) So that made for my first photo:

Then came the nudibranchs – Hermea Sp:

Hermea Sp bungee jumping off the kelp:

Elysia Maori:

Digidentis Perplexa:

Pretty sure this is Trinchesia Viridiana..tiny little suckers.

Another tiny nudi Trinchesia Sp:

I’m not sure if this one is Ancula mapae or Okenia sp:

Around the rock shelves i found this Digidentis Perplexa..a slightly different looking version of the ones usually in the rockpools:

20/05/2010 9.30 Point Lonsdale

Wind: ??????

Tide: 0.30 low tide at the Heads

Conditions: Chilly Autumn morning..low wind. Plenty of fish out and about.

Bottom Type: Rockpools

Bottom Time: 60 minutes

Details: Another quiet day for nudi’s.

Camera Details: Canon 100mm , single SS200 strobe.

Dive Report: Primarily a snorkel to look for nudis. Only 7 species seen this morning.

A tiny litter critter, i think this is called Berthella mediatas. I’m only about 50% on the ID of this one.

The fairly common; Doto Pita

Facelina sp

I haven’t seen this species in a long time – Noumea sulphurea

Wind: 15-20 knot north-westerlies

Tide: 1hr after 0.19 low tide at the heads

Bottom Time: 2hrs

Details: I got up early to catch the low tide, since the day wasn’t looking promising for scuba. Nudibranch expert Bob Burn was down there searching away, and we discussed the low numbers of nudibranch over the past 6 months. He was having a quiet day again today with only about 6 species seen all up. I ended up seeing about 10 species in the pools which is a significant increase than over the summer months, so i’m hoping this winter will turn on the numbers.

Camera Details: Canon 100mm , dual SS200 strobe.

Dive Report: It started slow with a couple of the usual species. Digidentis perplexa were in good number, although all very small specimens.

Phyllodesmium serratum are still around…i saw probably at least 4 of these.

The first slug showed up that i had to ask Bob Burn for an ID. He said it was a “Paliolla cooki”. A new slug for me.

This little critter is a bivalve.

Another tiny little fella with a great shell. Cyctiscus obesula

A brittlestar:

Ercolania Sp4:

An unknown nudi:

Discodoris sp:

Embletonia gracilis:

06/04/2010 11.15 Point Lonsdale Rockpools

Wind: 10 knot NE”s

Tide: 30min after 0.22 low tide at the Heads

Bottom Type: Rockpools

Bottom Time: 130 minutes

Max Depth: 1m

Camera Details: Canon 100mm macro, dual SS200 strobes and snoot + diffusers

Dive Report: I really felt the change in temperature today…the rockpools were freezing and i was shivering within an hour. Possibly because of the holes in my wetsuit that look like i’ve been attacked by a shark! But again, not a lot of nudi’s around, so i decided to try some new lighting techniques with the snoot and some new diffusers i made up for my second strobe.

First subject was Phyllodesmuim macphersonaea. I tried some backlighting, and attempted to backlight the kelp it was grazing on.

This shot made me feel like i must be torturing these little guys with light!

I moved on to a thornfish (thornfish love light! : )

Then tried some black and white shots with moody lighting:

There’s just too many Cleaner Shrimps in the pools to avoid taking photos of one…a quick try at a backlight shot before it jumped on the camera and started cleaning it.

A tiny Doto Pita is always a hard little critter to focus on..being only about 5mm.

A lone Smooth Toadfish wasn’t very afraid of my presence…allowing nice closeup shots of it.

I decided to play around the rock shelves and see if i could nail a shot of the Herring Cale that where around yesterday. I still didn’t get the shot i was after but these are bettter than yesterdays.

Movie strip framing seems to lend enhance the imagination and improve the image, i might start framing pics like this:

This ‘toddler’ magpie perch posed to the camera..what a cute face!

It was agood fish day, with this Victorian Scaly fin also enjoying posing for the camera. This is probably my favorite shot of the day.

04/04/2010 13.00 Point Lonsdale Rockpools

Wind: 15 knot NE”s

Tide: 3 hours after 0.16 low tide at the Heads

Bottom Type: Rockpools

Bottom Time: 100 minutes

Max Depth: 1m

Camera Details: Canon 100mm macro, single SS200 strobe and snoot

Dive Report: Another late arrival, but another big low tide. There were people everywhere on the platform, including some poms hassling a surf crab at the rockpool, which i found a limb of when i entered. The said they had recently harrased an octopus as well.

I jumped in and quickly found my first nudi…another common species ?????????????

I kept searching and soon spotted some large purple tenticles coming towards me, and then spotted the Maori Octopus peering out of the kelp.

I nearly put my wide-angle lens on for this dive, but thought ‘what could i possibly see in the rockpools that needs a wide angle?’ I had to make so with some eye close ups.

Seastars occassionally turn up in the pools, being common around the rockshelves. This one was was actively moving around.

A White-faced Heron hunted on the edge of the pools. I was hoping i could get a shot of it plunging its head underwater as it grabbed a fish, but it stuck to the shallows.

The pool soon flooded and i had a bit of a paddle around the rockshelve, where few juvenile Herringcale darted about. Damn these guys are hard to get a photo of!

04/04/2010 13.00 Point Lonsdale Rockpools

Wind: 15 knot NE”s

Tide: 2.5 hours after 0.12 low tide at the Heads

Bottom Type: Rockpools

Bottom Time: 30 minutes

Max Depth: 1m

Camera Details: Canon 100mm macro, single SS200 strobe and snoot

Dive Report: I arrived late at the pools, but it was a big low tide, so i still had some time to play. Little around again. Just the usual Phyllodesmuim Serratum.

It started doing some acrobatics:

31/03/2010 18.55 Point Lonsdale Rockpools

Wind: 15 knot Southerlies

Tide: 30mins before 0.52 low tide at the Heads

Bottom Type: Rockpools

Bottom Time: 60 minutes

Max Depth: 1m

Camera Details: Canon 100mm macro, dual SS200 strobe.

Dive Report: I haven’t been down to the rockpools in a while and thought it would be a good spot to try out the snoots. Aiming the snoots on snorkel is difficult as you generally don’t have the time or hands free to position the strobes accurately. So it was pretty hit and miss, but a couple of shots came out ok.

Phyllodesmium serratum are always common, and make a good subject.

A flatworm i’m yet to identify:

A cleaner shrimp portrait:

A really unexpected sighting was this crested weedfish. This is the first one i’ve seen on the bellarine peninsula. The only other one i saw was at Flinder Peir in Western Port bay.

13-03-2010 17.06 Point Lonsdale – 1hr past 0.53 low tide

Another very quiet day at the rockpools despite seeing Doto Pita as soon as i dived in.

The only other nudi was the ever present Phyllodesmuim macphersonae.

Tasmanian Blennies are suprisingly uncommon here.

Always plenty of Cleaner Shrimp around though:

03-03-2010 Point Lonsdale – 1.5hr before 0.34 low tide

A quick snorkel at dusk tonight produced only one nudi. I’m hoping that blogging some of this information might lead to a trend i can work out when there’s a high number of nudi’s around. Anyway, i turned my focus to fish, since there’s always plenty around at dusk. Especially these zebrafish…too big for a macro lens really.

Also a number of these smaller wrasse, always laying low in the weed:

I thought i’d try a bit of a collage of two sweep shots to see how it looked:

One of the most fascianting little fish i keep seeing, is whats suppose to be juvenile herring cales. I’m still not 100% convinced, but it seems likely they are. They move quickly and blend in perfectly to the erclonia kelp, making them tricky to get shots of.

Here’s another shot showing how the markings compliment the blemishes on the weed perfectly.

And another showing more mature markings.

Thornfish dont provide much of a challenge, they just sit and stare.

And a cleaner shrimp..uneaten this time:

Point Lonsdale 27-02-2010 – 4.20-5.30

Tides were good for Point Lonsdale after i finished my dive at St Leonards…so as knackered as i was, i couldn’t resist seeing what nudi’s were around in the rockpools. I saw about 5 species, but generally its been very quiet their lately.

First nudi was a Ceratasoma brevicaudatum, which i’ve only seen once or twice before in the rockpools. Much more common in the bay. This one was only about 30mm and very pale in its markings.

While i was photographying this slug, a small Sea Sweep decided to have a taste of this slug. They always seem to have a go at nudi’s only to work out that they taste like crap and quickly spit them out.

The next slug i saw is a small dorid, but i’m not sure what species. Its superficially like Doris Cameroni, but the purple blotches have got me stumped???

Another tiny 10mm nudi there was Halaxa Michaeli:

It was a day of smaller versions of usually much bigger species, this time a small version of Echinopsole breviceratae, one of my favorite species, and what i think is an endemic species to southern waters.

My attention was diverted from nudi’s when i saw a mullet cruising around with something in its mouth. I first thought it was a egg cluster, but soon realised it had a mouthful of Cleaner shrimp! He didn’t seem to be trying to swallow it, so it might have been a bit of a choking hazard.

A big old Seacarp watched all the action from beneath a small legde: