Since snorkeling here is quite good, it seems likely that I will make an abundance of snorkeling posts.  For this reason, I will be numbering them as well as dating them.  Generally speaking, I tend to snorkel on days when there is limited surf and the water is calm with clear visibility.  As I have mentioned in the prior post, I know from living here previously, that the inhabitants of the bay change quite drastically with the seasons which makes snorkeling in the same area much more interesting than you might imagine.  In some cases, I may choose to do a general video of my snorkel that day and in other cases, I may focus on a particular fish or sea creature that I find particularly interesting.  Sometimes, I’ll do a mixture of both.   

Comb Jellyfish

At the moment, the Comb Jellyfish are still amassing in huge numbers to the point where they literally form a layer on the surface of the water.  It seems this ready food source is also causing large schools of fish to aggregate.  I was not aware that so many different types of fish would eat jellyfish but I witnessed several munching away at the jellies during my last snorkel.  Of course, when I would get close enough to video, the fish would usually stop eating and pay more attention to me than the food but I did find it interesting.  Since I had heard sea turtles like to eat jellyfish I expected to find some of them but, sadly, none were present.  After reading a bit about the Comb Jellyfish following my last snorkel, I decided to try and record a bit more of them.  I wanted to try and capture light refracting off their cilia which is known to create a prism-like effect.   In my last post, I also wrote about them having a very unique nerve net in their epithelium (surface tissue) so I wanted to see if they would react to touch and what they would do. 

Here is my short 30 second Comb Jellyfish video below:

Pretty cool!  Right?  They definitely responded very clearly to touch and immediately began swimming for a couple seconds.  I wonder if this is intended to help them elude predators.  The prism-like effect of the cilia movement is also very clearly captured and gives the impression of pulsating multicolored light waves which is quite beautiful.  

Cabbage Tree Bay Snorkel – June 19, 2023 

The overall snorkel today was fantastic.  There are a wide variety of fish and great visibility when not obscured by the jellies.  I tried to make a short video, less than 1 minute, capturing snippets of what I saw.  In the video I entered captions to the lower right of each species but they include:  Yellowtail Scad, Eastern Blue Groper, Velvet Leatherjacket, Mado, Parore, Silver Batfish, Tailor Fish/ Bluefish, Sergeant Baker (which looks like a dinosaur fish), Rock Cale, the biggest Giant Cuttlefish I have ever seen, and an Australian Pied Cormorant (bird) diving through the water as well.  

Sergeant Baker or Dragon Snapper

As I mentioned earlier, these fish have an appearance reminiscent of a dinosaur and I think they look quite remarkable.   They are easy to spot since they are relatively large (~60cm) and typically sit motionless on the sea floor with their head raised, perched on their front fins.   Their scales are well defined but mottled in color and their reddish/orange dorsal fin is a stark contrast to the darker coloration of their bodies.  However, from reading online, I noticed that their coloration can be quite different with some appearing bright red.  Also, some of the ones I saw were more of a dark brown with less contrast on the dorsal fin and tail.  The particularly long dorsal fin is a characteristic of the male but the females do not have such a pronounced dorsal fin.   Apparently, they are named after a Sergeant William Baker who served in the British Royal Navy in the 1700-1800’s and who is rumored to be the first to catch the fish which is endemic to Australia.  While they appear rather stunning and are of decent size, they are said to be a poor fish for eating since they are very boney.

Australian Pied Cormorant

I am adding in these shots of the Australian Pied Cormorant (also knows as the Pied Shag) per my brother’s request.   It was actually quite surprising and a bit alarming to see it flying through the water past me.  I could hear a big splash when it dove in and then saw it shoot past me like an arrow.  Apparently, they only dive for around 40 seconds but I could see they can cover quite a bit of ground in that much time.  They also have a nictitating membrane which is like a transparent third eyelid that they use when underwater to protect their eyes while still enabling them to see.  I added a photo of the one in the water but also a couple shots of one on the shore drying it’s wings and another of a youngster.