2023

First dive of the season, and my first dive since retiring!

The weather and tides were right, and as we now live only a few minutes from Ricketts it was a great time to get back into the water. There had been strong winds and a fair bit of rain earlier in the week, so the visibility wasn't the best. We saw good numbers of Snapper, but only a few Leatherjackers and Zebrafish. There was a group of Moonlighters hovering around one particular part of the reef, and there were also several Banjo Sharks feeding on the bottom. I had a fleeting glimpse of a Port Jackson Shark, but no luck in finding any others in the gutters and caves.

Kirsty and I saw even more Snapper on this dive than when we were here in 14 January! In some places they seemed to be circling around one particular fish that was lying on the sandy bottom. Perhaps this was a female who was getting ready to release eggs?

There were quite a few Moonlighters, Zebrafish, and Yellow-striped Leatherjackets, along with a pair of Yellow-finned Leatherjackets where the male was being particularly protective of the female.

We found one Port Jackson Shark on this dive, under an overhanging gutter, but couldn't find any more. There were a few Stingarees around as well. The beginning and end of this dive saw us swimming through schools of Garfish.

Our first dive at Ricketts for the year certainly did not disappoint! There were lots of Snapper and Zebrafish, Scalyfins and Sweep, along with some Old Wives, Fiddler Rays, Spotted Stingarees, and an enormous school of East Australian Salmon that circled us for at least five minutes. They seemed quite interested in checking us out, as long as we didn't get too close! Visibility varied from reasonable to excellent on this dive. Every time we come here we have a great time, and wonder why we bother diving anywhere else. If we had brought more tanks with us we would have been straight back in...

I spotted a small nudibranch on this dive, possibly one of the Tambja species, but I didn't get a good photo of it. Perhaps I rushed it, but the camera just didn't focus on it. I saw what I think was a colony of Grape Ascidian in the weed near Eivion. The highlight of the dive would have to have been the time we spent watching a Blue-Ringed Octopus moving between pylons under the pier. There were lots of juvenile Leatherjackets around, and a school of Herring was also found, out towards the end of the pier.