Bremner bay , Western Australia -there be dragons!

In March 2019 went diving with Craig Lebens of https://bremerbaydive.com and made a video of a Weedy Sea Dragon feeding.

There was also leafy sea dragons but see how well camouflaged:-

but here is a leafy dragon out in the open:-

We were diving at Rottnest http://www.rottnestisland.com, on 3rd April 2016 with the Perth Diving Academy’s https://www.perthdiving.com.au dive boat Lionfish and saw a cute octopus which I think was a frilled pygmy octopus (FPO). Check it out :-

If it was a FPO then it’s the first time it’s been seen on the West coast of Australia according to the Atlas of living Australia :- http://bie.ala.org.au/species/Octopus+superciliosus

But the trouble with identifying octopuses ( or is octopi? http://grammarist.com/usage/octopi-octopuses/) is that because of their ability to change colour to suit their background it’s very difficult to compare photos from different locations.

We were on the SCUBA diving  liveaboard Thailand Aggressor for a seven day trip Saturday 10/10/15 until Friday 16/10/15. We did the South  Andaman Sea itinerary the details are at:- http://www.aggressor.com/captainlogsview.php?log=4521

On board was an excellent photographer, Gary, he partnered us on many of the dives and he has a web site with the photographs from trip at:-

http://www.naturalexpressions.com/cgi-bin/photo/search.pl?Type=Andaman

Generally, this was a good trip and the crew and dive staff were exceptional in ensuring a fun diving experience. However, there was a lack of big stuff we just saw 1 shark and 1 turtle. There was plenty of evidence of commercial fishing – every night the horizon was crowded with fish boats with very strong lights to attract squid and prawns. Also, from the lack of even small reef sharks, I suspect there was a lot of shark fishing for shark fin soup. The reefs, although still interesting to dive, are showing signs of overfishing.

Below is

On the first day we saw a school of barracuda:-

Also from the first day diving here’s a couple of photographs in our spot-the-fish series first spot the flounder :-

and then spot the stone fish – a bit more important to spot than the flounder because of the highly venomous spines:-

on the topic of venomous spine here’s a lion fish:-

back to more friendly fish and a group of easy to spot finding Nemo clown fish:-

Day2: ever seen a cucumber have a crap:-

And here’s a video of a stone fish blinking – the fish is difficult to see until it blinks:-

Day3: this parrot fish is getting cleaned by small blue wrasse fish – seems to be enjoying it and certainly it was reluctant to move which made it easy to film:-

Below’s a video of a shoal of yellow snappers and if you look at it closely you will see some Blue cleaner wrasse touting for business but none of the yellow snappers stop to get cleaned – I guess some days the cleaners just strike out.

This is a big dog faced puffer fish – check it out:-

Here’s a video of a cuttle fish mating behaviour, according to Clive the dive master “they are always at it” – the video shows a large male protecting the female in contention from challengers – they are flashing to each other  signalling no doubt the cuttle fish equivalent of “are you looking at my girl friend”.  They are four “Fs” of animal behaviour, fleeing, feeding, fighting and reproduction and is this video we have fighting and reproduction.

I always like the way sea snakes move – looks silky smooth and sinuously sensual – this video shows a banded sea krait checking out the nooks and crannies on the reef looking for prey. The sea krait has  a very poisonous bite but, fortunately, it means of delivery, its fangs, are small and designed only for killing small fish – but don’t let a sea krait chew on you because if  it does manage to deliver its poison it could ruin your whole day or at least the 3 minutes of it you have left.

In December-January, 2014- 2015, we went on a scuba diving trip to Komodo, Indonesia. It was 10 days on a livaboard run by Aggressor fleet on a yacht called Komodo Dancer. We started at Labuan Bajo (LBJ) on Flores Island in the East Nusa Tenggara province in Indonesia on Monday 22/12/14 and finished in Bali on 1/1/15. Here are a selection of the photos and videos with some limited explanations. The photos and videos were taken with Cannon Power shot D30 which, without an underwater housing, can go to an impressive 25 m  – actually due to a slight miscalculation I took it 30m and it survived.

Here’s me :-

Sunset jump

Here’s the dive master Rob on Christmas day:-

Rob the dive master underwater in santa hat very festive

here’s a Komodo dragon on the beach

The insouciance of the dragon on Komodo beach

Here’s the pink beach on Komodo  island

Here’s a big eyed puffer fish

Big eyed puffer fish

These clown fish were arguing over who owns the anemone  -see finding Nemo

Clown fish fight!

The dragons who hung out by the kitchen on Komodo island – it was just the smell that attracted them – they were not fed.

The kitchen dragons on Komodo island

Here’s a movie of the banded sea snake

Here’s a movie of a cuttle fish just at the end you can see it change colour.

The dive trip ended on new years day in Bali and the next day we returned to Perth.

I dived the Blizzard ridge dive site on the west side of Exmouth, Western Australia, on Sunday 7th April 2013 and saw this Olive Sea Snake didn’t realise it was quite as venomous as it turns out to be!