Beautiful evening

We've been having extremely hot weather here for the past few days and the start of the heat wave came in on a bit of thunderstorm activity over the Gulf. Dave and I took the Girls down the other evening and it was just gorgeous. A rainbow greeted us as we drove to the beach past the golf club

Down on the beach the sky hadn't yet taken on sunset golds, but the rainbow was pretty cool reflecting on the sand


Me and Dave

Me having a bit of a windy hair day

Once the sun dropped a little more the sky turned incredible



The dogs were having fun and looked good in the warm light

Til can't just be normal


Dave with the sunset behind him


Looking back to the west

I'm still surprised at how good Tilly has been leaping back in the car with no fuss

Dora doesn't so much as leap in as wait for her Dad to pick her butt up

Driving back from the beach along the golf course the western sky was pretty

There was an awesome cloud formation coming up over the town just around the corner from our house

Harry was waiting patiently for us...I think he though we had fresh fish!

Nudibranchs galore!

Ross, Mary and I headed out yesterday morning for two dives in Lighthouse Bay.  The surface conditions were pretty good and the bottom conditions were certainly much better than they were on Thursday!  There were also zillions of nudibranchs out and about...we LOVE nudibranchs!

01 - Chromodoris fidelis


02 - Janolus sp


03 - perky little guy


04 & 05 - Tambja morosa



06 - Hypselodoris bullockii


07 - Nembrotha kubaryana feeding


08 - Noumea varians


09 - Cadlinella ornatissima


10 - Halgerda tessellata


11 - about 5 feet from the adult Halgerda tessellata, this teensy juvenile was perched on top of a bit of rock, taking in his surroundings


12 & 13 & 14 - Risbecia tryoni




15 - I had just been talking with one of our instructors about Spanish Dancers (Hexabranchus sanguineus) and how the juveniles look very different to the adults. She had never seen one before and I said that I'd only see two juveniles before, and it had a been long time since the last one. So imagine my delight when I dropped down under the boat for dive two yesterday and saw this little cutie first up!


16 - Mary had the best find of the day...a nudibranch we've never seen before! He was booking right along and I was low on air so had to end my dive after grabbing a couple of very quick shots of him. I sure hope we see more of these as they are incredible! Favorinus tsuruganus


There were many other nudis all over the dive sites plus tons of cleaning action, fishes, turtles, sharks, rays...you name it, it was out there yesterday! I'll post some other things later.

Today I am in my office doing some dive shop promotional materials and making sure that everything is in place and updated before I leave next Sunday. I am also working on Jade & Aaron's wedding album, talking with a couple of brides, returning some enquiry calls, working on some things for the Novotel and about upmteen other photography related things! I have a list, so hopefully I can get through it all in a timely fashion.

It's a good day to be inside with the air-conditioning on as it is headed to over 40C again!
 

Yay! It's 2009!

And I can't tell you how happy I am to see the back end of 2008.  What a year.  Here's to 2009 being fantastic for us all!

Our nephew and his fiance, Chris & Hayley, came up to visit and have a little break just after Christmas.  We had an excellent dinner and drinks at the Italian restaurant one night and they got out for a couple of dives and some fishing with Dave one day and brought back some good fish.  It was a late one by the time they got around to packing it all up for the trip back to Perth



We had a late open on New Year's Day at the dive shop, so I headed out for two morning dives with Ross and Mary. I really enjoyed both of them, despite some pretty sub-average conditions on the first site. The second site was just magic - great visibility, incredible activity, no current and little surge. I played around with shooting some subjects I don't normally spend much time with and overall just enjoyed the heck out of being underwater. After those two dives, I had to jump ship in the middle of the Gulf so I could guide some of the dive shop divers on our two afternoon reef dives so it turned in to a long day on the water!

01 - royal damsel

02 -


03 - yellow boxfish


04 - whitetip reef shark. These guys must have been mating because the big female was circling around and around, then would crash land onto the sand where a small male would come close to her and off she'd go again. There was a little bumping going on and she clearly wasn't interested in the whole affair; she just really wanted to be left alone.


05 - Chromodoris geometricas laying eggs. I found this pair on the second dive.


06 - On the third dive, I found the egg spiral, but the two nudibranchs had moved off. I found one a very long ways from the eggs and couldn't find the other at all.


07 - there was a whole school of batfish under the boat on the second dive and they weren't shy about getting close!


As usual, there was no shortage of cleaning action
08 - goatfish


09 - rankin cod


10 - big eye trevally


11 - The tiger cardinalfish are brooding their eggs again


Some more cutie fishes
12 - Gold-banded butterfly fish, juvenile


13 - Fiery damsel, adult. When these guys are juveniles, their backs are bright red or orange. Still pretty when they grow up!


On the other end of the spectrum, there were lots of creatures with good camouflage, too
14 - crocodilefish


15 - scorpionfish


16 - we see a lot of these little gobies guarding their holes as a shrimp cleans house, but I've never seen (or noticed, maybe) one of these stripey shrimp before


And the not so subtle
17 - Gymnodoris rubropapulosa


18 - Hypselodoris bullockii


19 - and some beautiful orangey-pinky soft coral


Dave has had to drive down to Coral Bay for work stuff today so I am in the dive centre wishing the air-conditioners would at least pretend to keep up with the over 40C degree day we're having. I have a meeting with one of my April brides later tonight and have a few new enquiries to follow up, too.

I think 2009 is going to be great! So far we're off to a good start ;)