RLS surveys have been conducted at the Halifax Divesite in Nelson Bay for several years. More intensive surveying has been conducted in the last 18 months, however, due to concern over sand movement causing damage to the site. Surveys have been conducted at the site every 2 months since October 2010 to assess recovery from this disturbance. As an added bonus, these repeated surveys also provide an insight into seasonal variations in fish diversity in the region, which is heavily influenced by the East Australian current.

Surveys have been conducted on 2 transects at Halifax, with each survey starting at a known landmark on the reef. One transect is at a depth of 8m on the Eastern side, and the second transect is at a depth of 11m on the Western side.

Figure 1 shows the trend over the last 18 months in the average, across the 2 transects, of the total number of fish species encountered on each transect, along with average water temperatures over the same interval. Species richness at the site has followed a very clear seasonal trend, tracking changes in water temperature. The East Australia Current is known to sweep a host of tropical species into Nelson Bay over the summer, and the marked seasonality in species richness is primarily due to patterns of recruitment by tropical species, which apparently either emigrate or die-off during the cooler months.

Figure 2: Comparison of average water temperature and average number of species at Halifax

To date more than 250 species of fish have been identified on RLS surveys in the Port Stephens area. Table 1 shows the most common species with temperate and tropical or sub-tropical affinities recorded on transects in Nelson Bay. Note that while many of the tropical/sub-tropical species are only found during summer, some of these are also regularly encountered during winter; for example Parupeneus spilurus and Stethojulis interrupta.

Table 1: Common Temperate and Tropical Species in Nelson Bay

To date there is little evidence that sand movement at Halifax has had a significant impact on fish species at the site, however there is no question that sand inundation has devastated much of the site’s sponge gardens. Monitoring is ongoing and hopefully in the future the sponge gardens will recover. In the meantime, Halifax is still a fantastic place to see a wide variety of fish species, especially in Autumn!

For more information on diving in Nelson Bay see divingnelsonbay.weebly.com

Local RLS divers Elaine Kwee, Martin Mueller and Thierry Rakotoarivelo were joined by Rick Stuart Smith and a contingent from the Hunter: Ashley Smith, Kate Tinson, Margo Smith, Nicola Davis, Tom Davis and new recruit, David Atkinson for the four days. UTas database guru, Just Berkhout, also participated. He was able to give a few quick tips to volunteers and speak to the group on their suggestions to improve and streamline the data entry process.

Friday’s weather was perfect and most of the team split up to tick off the more exposed sites around the eastern beaches, while Tom and Nicola headed a little further south to Oak Park. Saturday and Sunday’s dives were predominantly boat dives inside Sydney Harbour, re-surveying the high priority sites around Middle, North and South Heads. Unfortunately strong southerlies and big swell restricted access to sites outside and around the Heads. Shore sites at Camp Cove and Shelly Beach were surveyed on Monday.

In total, 33 transects were completed at 15 sites. There were substantially fewer fish species recorded this year than last: 118 species, down from 187 from the same number of transects and sites in 2011. The difference was noticeable in fewer juveniles of tropical and sub-tropical species, presumably linked to cooler water temperatures than during the surveys last year.

The more unusual species included Batrachomoeus dubius (eastern frogfish) and a juvenile Lethrinus genivittatus (long spine emperor). Rick found an old friend, photographing a large Achoerodus viridus (eastern blue groper) at Camp Cove – The markings/scars confirming the same individual at that site for the last three years! We look forward to seeing him next year….

Thank you to all this year’s participants and the Bondi Dive Centre for fills and equipment hire. Also to the crew of Omega II, Pete and Guv, for sterling boat service and gourmet surface interval refreshments, hot cross buns and melting moments!

Once again, this trip was a collaborative effort between RLS and Parks Victoria (PV) with the primary aim being to survey established Parks Victoria sites. Data collected feeds directly into their Sub-tidal Reef Monitoring Program (SRMP) as well as into the RLS dataset.

Don Love kindly brought his boat along again and between him, and Paul and Michael from Southend Dive and Charters, the team successfully surveyed 12 of the 18 existing Parks Victoria sites. A total of 39 surveys were completed over the 6 days of diving, which was a grand effort. From those sites, 59 different fish species and 79 macro-invertebrate/cryptic fish were recorded. These values are consistent with last year’s surveys where 60 fish and 80 invertebrates were seen.  The most abundant fish species seen were: Notolabrus tetricus (blue throat wrasse), Parma victoriae (Victoria scalyfin), Olisthops cyanomelas (herring cale), and Pictilabrus laticlavius (Senator wrasse). The most common cryptic fish/macro-invertebrate species seen were, Comanthus tricoptera (Common featherstar), Haliotis laevigata (green lip abalone), Tosia australis (biscuit star), and Heliocidaris erythrogramma (common urchin). The cryptic fish weren’t as plentiful this year and Pope’s Eye failed to deliver the usual assortment of warty prowfish, golblinfish and sea dragons but the crew were compensated with a gorgeous velvetfish (Aploactisoma milesii) on the very last day!

We would like to give a massive thanks to the survey team team and in particular, Don Love for providing boat support and for his skippering expertise and knowledge of the Port Phillip Bay area. Huge thanks must also go to Paul Serbo and his awesome decky Michael for the super tasty hotdogs! Also thanks must go out to the Parks Victoria crew in Queensclilff, in particular Steffan Howe who helped organise the trip and provided a pen for Don’s boat. We look forward to the next Queenscliff trip.

Southend Dive and Charters. Contact Paul Serbo: 0438 591 120, email:  pserbo@bigpond.net.au

The survey weekend was slow to kick off as a nasty front brought winds up to 50kts and large swells. Despite this, not a single one of the divers decided to come over a day later, instead choosing to brave the conditions and do a shore dive in the choppy seas on the Friday, when the boats were unable to get across to the island for the planned dives. Saturday saw an improvement in weather, with the Dive Frontiers RIB and the RLS ducky arriving, but some lingering poor visibility. All came together for some incredible dives on Sunday and Monday though, with the team reporting visibility in excess of 25m and loads of fish!

The trend on the east coast of Australia this Autumn was also evident in the west – unusually warm waters, and numerous tropical species. A total of 113 fish species was recorded by the team of 10, which included local marine gurus Karen Crawley, Paul Day, Wendy Hutchison, Cheryl Petty, Marjon Phur, Kevin Smith and Rusty Stevens (who was actually not rusty at all), with easterners Jen Hoskin, Don Love and Martin Mueller. Of the fishes recorded, 33 were tropicals (and sub-tropicals) – up from 23 tropicals (and sub-tropicals) recorded from all surveys at Rotto over the last 3 years (out of approx. 150 fishes). The significance of this is more evident when survey effort is compared: 36 transects were surveyed this year, compared to 115 surveyed all up previous to this.

Unfortunately the weather didn’t allow the West End grey nurses to be surveyed, but large baldchin grouper, blue groper, dhufish and kingfish featured at a few of the team’s favourite sites: Kingston Reef, Crystal Palace, Roe Reef and the Count. The Duck Rock site also impressed those divers that had not previously surveyed it and pretty much everyone was raving about excellent dives with lots of marine life on Sunday and Monday afternoons. Russ was particularly proud, having recorded possibly the first confirmed record of Nembrotha milleri in Australia!

One other highlight that has to be mentioned was Cheryl’s 50^th Birthday (Oops, I mean 40^th!) on Saturday. Marjon somehow carefully managed to sneak a magnificent marine cake across on the ferry and everyone enjoyed celebrating Cheryl’s milestone with a lovely chocolate cake! Happy birthday Cheryl!

We would like to give a massive thanks to Helen Shortland-Jones at the Rottnest Island Authority, who as Rusty has done in the last couple of years, provided ferry tickets, accommodation at the research station, arranged all the tanks and fills, boat pens and provided enormous logistical support in general. The Rotto survey weekend simply could not go ahead without this enormous support from the RIA – and given how much everyone loves the Rotto survey weekend, I’m sure we speak for all the divers in thanking Helen and the RIA. A big thanks also to our skipper Phil Fox (a hardy Tasmanian himself) and Dive Frontiers – the RIB was perfect again and well skippered. Paul and Wendy also deserve thanks for putting in a lot of extra time and effort to ensure we had the ducky, which essentially doubles the number of sites that can be surveyed and allows the bigger group.

Let’s hope for another good one next year, which will mark the 5^th straight year of RLS Rotto surveys!

This trip was a collaborative effort between RLS and Parks Victoria (PV) with the primary aim being to survey established Parks Victoria sites, with data feeding directly into their management of Port Phillip Heads MNP as part of their Sub-tidal Reef Monitoring Program (SRMP) as well as into the RLS dataset.

The SRMP has been running since 1998, with 15 sites established on sub-tidal reef habitats in the vicinity of Port Phillip Heads Marine National Park. Of the 15 sites, the RLS team, which consisted of Don Love, Bill Barker, Sue Newson, Jen Hoskin and Toni, managed to survey 8 of the PV SRMP sites and 2 pre-existing RLS sites which resulted in 28 full surveys over the 5 day period. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t particular kind to the crew and sites were limited to the more sheltered areas of the bay such as Pt Nepean, Pope’s Eye, South Channel Fort and Shortland Bluff.

A lot of cool cryptic fish were spotted including goblinfish (Glyptauchen panduratus), silver spot (Threpterius maculosus), warty prowfish (Aetapcus maculates) and tricky weedfish species. Don got lucky with his warty prowfish and scored 4 at 4 different sites plus a few extras for good measure off transect. He was also determined to spot a western blue groper (Achoerodus gouldii) before the end of the trip and finally on the last day, he saw one!

Overall 60 species of fish and 80 species of invertebrate/cryptic fish were recorded. The most abundant fish were Notolabrus tetricus, Parma victoriae, Siphamia cephalotes and Enoplosus armatus. The most abundant invertebrates were Antedon loveni, Heliocidaris erythrogramma, Haliots rubra, and Meridiastra gunnii.

As the week went on, the weather got worse and unfortunately the trip was cut a few days short due to awful conditions. Even with the elements against us the trip still resulted in a lot of valuable data collected by a group of enthusiastic and skilled volunteers contributing more valuable surveys in the area.

We would like to give a massive thanks to Don Love for providing boat support and for his skippering expertise and knowledge of the Port Phillip Bay area. Also huge thanks must go out to the Parks Victoria crew in Queensclilff, in particular Steffan Howe who helped organise the trip and provided a pen for Don’s boat. We look forward to the next Queenscliff trip and will be keeping fingers and toes crossed for good weather!

Once again, another crack team of NSW RLSers travelled to Jervis Bay for a great weekend of surveying on board Ocean Trek.

Divers came from all over: Margo Smith, Kate Tinson, Tom and Nicola Davis from Port Stephens, Isabelle Strachan from Forster, Bill Barker and Andrew Green from the Batemans Bay area, Martin Mueller from Sydney and new trainee Tim Crawford came up from Tassie with Rick Stuart-Smith and Toni Cooper.

Although the weather and visibility weren’t in our favour for the first couple of days, Mick and Lyn from Ocean Trek did a fantastic job to help us re-survey as many existing sites as possible. Their local knowledge and expertise were definitely put to great use over the weekend and we were most grateful for all their efforts.

All up we managed to complete 72 surveys at 16 different sites over the 3 and a half days, 11of which were pre-existing sites. 162 different fish species and 90 mobile invertebrate/cryptic fish species were recorded, some of these were recorded for the first time this year and included orange-spot surgeonfish (Acanthurus olivaceous), southern orange-lined cardinalfish (Apogon properuptus), Kleins butterflyfish (Chaetodon kleinii), and chevroned butterflyfish (Chaetodon trifascialis).

New trainee, Tim, already had a good knowledge of the fish species which gave him a big advantage during his training and was an absolute gun by the end of the weekend. He is a great addition to the RLS family and we are very excited to have him onboard.

Big thanks to everyone who came along we love your enthusiasm and skills and company. To Mick, Lyn and Bob, thanks for being such great hosts. We look forward to next year’s trip!

Fifteen sites in Sydney Harbour, Botany Bay and along the Sydney coast that have been surveyed during the last two years were resurveyed by a team consisting of Tom & Nicola Davis, Martin Mueller, Jack O’Connor, Thierry Rakotoarivelo, Margo & Ash Smith, Kate Tinson and Rick Stuart-Smith. Three committed local Sydney divers also participated to be trained in the RLS methods and become part of what is becoming a strong local team. Tom Heath, Elaine Kwee and Renata Pronk proved very enthusiastic and quick learners and we are incredibly lucky to have them as RLS divers and part of the national team now.

Although conditions weren’t very favourable in the lead up to the survey weekend, with torrential downpours through the local catchments and distinctly brown water along the coast, timing dives around high tide and exploring multiple sites to find the clearest on each occasion allowed surveys to proceed with at least 5 m of visibility. By splitting between shore and boat teams, 33 transects were surveyed at 15 sites over the course of the four days.

The most striking result of the surveys was the sheer number of tropical species present this year. Although the phenomenon of tropical vagrants turning up in Sydney is well known, this year seems to have been a big year, with 56 tropical (and sub-tropical) fish species recorded (out of a total of 187 fishes recorded on the 33 transects). This is impressive considering a total of about 50 species of tropical fish had previously been recorded during 172 RLS transects in the Sydney area over the last 3 years (out of 192 fishes all up).

Particularly interesting sightings included the dusky whaler sharks (Carcharhinus obscurus), adult spangled emperor (Lethrinus nebulosus) and island trevally (Carangoides orthogrammus) at Fairy Bower, as well as abundant Macropharyngodon, Acanthurus olivaceus and Halichoeres nebulosus juveniles at Bluefish Point.

As for previous organised Sydney survey weekends, enormous support was provided by Abyss SCUBA (www.abyss.com.au), and Peter from Frog Dive (http://www.frogdive.com.au/). Peter’s expert skippering and knowledge of RLS sites and needs was very much appreciated and he as well as the staff at Abyss deserves a massive thank you once again for helping make the surveys possible and successful.

The Derwent Estuary Program recently initiated a recovery project for the endangered spotted handfish, with RLS assisting to establish a core group of local divers that can assist in monitoring a couple of key handfish populations in the Derwent Estuary. The second survey weekend for this project was held over the 12^th and 13^th March to survey handfish not far from the centre of Hobart and, like the first, was incredibly successful.

We had an overwhelming response from keen experienced divers for this round of surveys, which meant that we ended up with quite a large team – Daniel Beard, Sylvia Buchanan, Tim Crawford, Emma Flukes, Amelia Fowles, Mark Green, Keith Martin-Smith, Rita Silver and Rick Stuart-Smith. Having a large team was great in terms of what we were able to achieve; allowing us to survey 40 transects! Unfortunately it also meant that Mark Stalker, the skipper, had his work cut out keeping up with the boat work associated with dropping off and picking up divers and so on! Fortunately he has some great assistance on Saturday from Ian Buchanan, a Melbourne RLS diver down for the weekend. Together they did an unbelievable job in allowing it all to run smoothly. A massive thanks once again to Mark Stalker and Veolia Environmental Services for their support.

Twenty two spotted handfish were seen along the 40 transect lines set, plus two others seen off line while working in the area. Similar to the previous survey weekend, these fish were not distributed uniformly along the lines, but occurred in patches. There were 5 transects along which multiple handfish were recorded; one with 5 individuals, one with 3 and 3 with 2 each. There were 27 transects surveyed without any handfish recorded at all.

The average size was slightly greater than for the previous survey weekend at 85 mm (compared to 75 mm in January), with five fish recorded at 100 mm or more.

The next activity for the project will be to plant artificial spawning substrate in parts of both the areas surveyed and these areas will be monitored during the breeding season. Updates from ongoing activities will continue to be posted here in the news section of the RLS website, but please contact either RLS or the Derwent Estuary Program (www.derwentestuary.org.au) if you would like any more information on the project activities or results….

Don Love kindly brought his boat up and he, along with Alan, Amelia and Toni successfully surveyed 36 transects over 9 sites. Much to Don’s surprise, the team enjoyed great weather and up to 20 metre visibility over the 4 days. Surveys were done at long-term monitoring sites for Parks Victoria, who manage this important and relatively remote marine protected area (MPA). These RLS surveys filled a gap in the monitoring schedule by Parks Victoria for 2011, and the data collected will provide a valuable addition to the sub-tidal reef monitoring program for the state.

Being so close to the NSW border, reefs at Cape Howe and Gabo Island contain a real mixture of eastern and southern species which made for interesting surveys. Species which are predominantly found more in NSW and in areas of sea urchin barrens, such as blue groper (Achoerodus viridis), blue morwong (Nemadactylus douglasii), and one-spot pullers (Chromis hypsilepis) were common sightings across the sites, even though the kelp-dominated habitat was more typical of reefs further to the south.

A huge thank you to everyone who participated and helped make the trip a smooth one. Andrew and Bill joined Don for a few days after the weekend and although they weren’t as lucky with the weather, they still managed to get a bunch of surveys done – great work guys! Special thanks must go to Don “Capt’n Birdseye” Love for providing the boat and local knowledge, we couldn’t have done it without him!

The Derwent Estuary Program recently initiated a recovery project for the endangered spotted handfish, with RLS assisting to establish a core group of local divers that can assist in monitoring a couple of key handfish populations in the Derwent Estuary.

A preliminary survey weekend was held on the 8^th and 9^th January with a small skilled team consisting of Emma Flukes, Tania Mendo, Jemina Stuart-Smith, Paul Day, Mark Green and Rick Stuart-Smith stringing transect lines all over the place and towing around GPS units on floats. Thirty-six transects were surveyed and 24 different handfish were recorded and photographed for individual identification (based on spot patterns). They averaged just over 75 mm total length (TL), with the biggest 102 mm, and were certainly aggregated in particular hotspots (unfortunately for Paul, none seemed to be on his side of the transect line!) – Seven of them all on one transect line, and five on another.

Mark Stalker, from Veolia Environmental Services kindly provided his expertise, time and a vessel for the operation, and was incredibly skillful, patient and always in the right place and right time. There is no doubt that things could not have run anywhere near as smoothly or efficiently without his assistance. Thanks Mark.

There are more surveys planned for early March, so look out here for an update when they have been done. If you would like any more information on the handfish recovery project or the Derwent Estuary Program, visit their website at: www.derwentestuary.org.au or contact the RLS team…