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…

The two most active surveyors of our group are Alan Wilkins (‘Big Al’) and Don Love (‘Captain Birdseye’), who have managed between them to survey virtually the whole Victorian coast in the last year, from Cape Howe in the east to Portland in the west.

Some five years ago we began the Friends of Beware Reef Group, to initially explore and map the three shipwrecks on the reef (this was a result of Don being a Shipwreck nut!). With Beware Reef having just been proclaimed a Marine Sanctuary, it became obvious to our group that not even Parks Victoria knew much about what really resided within their brand new, shiny park. So we set about building up a data-base of fish species observed on our dives. This was later extended to invertebrates, and seaweeds as our group began to regularly attract funding to subsidize our ‘addiction.’

Somewhere along the way John, Mike and Don were invited to join the RLS crew down at Flinders Island for a training course to learn the finer art of underwater video census methods. With the further development of our group John has taken on the role of underwater video man, and Alan came on board as our new surveyor.

We try to go diving on a weekly basis, one wonders why after both doing many thousands of dives between us. We are in the habit of diving twelve months of the year, in all water conditions from passably warm (18 degrees is considered hot!) to bloody cold (9 degrees); in good viz up to 25+ metres, to very limiting visibility around two metres when the algal blooms are on. We dive in current of up to three knots and even launched the boat in swells of 3 to 4 metres, the result being a bent prop! We have even been lucky enough to get bogged from time to time on the Cape Conran boat ramp. Digging the car out of the sand, believe it or not, is a blessing in winter when we come back absolutely freezing and cold from diving!

Reef Life Surveying for us usually takes place in around 10 to 20 metres of water as there are no really shallow parts on Beware Reef. But we have dived every pinnacle within the marine sanctuary and are now also doing surveys outside the park for comparative purposes. After about 6 to 7 hours out in the boat we return safely to the boat ramp and go back down the highway to home, an average dive day for us being in total 10 to 11 hours!

We are well known along the east Gippsland coast by all the regular fishermen, abalone divers, police, fisheries officers, Parks Victoria personal and by many locals and tourists alike who we give talks to on a regular basis. We have built up a strong working relationship we many of these groups and have been lucky enough to have been receiving grants for the last six years to continue our efforts in monitoring and educating others.

This year we have just received our latest grant and are getting a side-scan sonar unit to really get some good profiles and matching GPS marks so we can more accurately survey (and monitor the rapidly increasing urchin barrens). By this time next year we should have a really good data base (both statistically and visually through video) of what lies beneath the waves in the Beware Reef Marine Sanctuary.

As long as we can keep a positive attitude and keep up our fitness, this little RLS group (Friends of Beware Reef), should be able to keep going for another decade or two?

Survey data now exists from places such as Ningaloo, Muiron Islands Shark Bay, Enderby Island, Mornington Island, Lizard Island, Hinchinbrook/Dunk Islands, Cairns, Whitsundays, Great Keppel Island, Stradbroke Island, Babinda, Noosa and Byron Bay. Reef Life Survey would like to thank the following divers in particular for their hard work, expertise and participation during some, most, or all of the RLS tropical survey trip: Tim Alexander, Bill Barker, Ian Buchanan, Sylvia Buchanan, Pip Cohen, Karen Crawley, Nicola Davis, Tom Davis, Paul Day, Sophie Edgar, Andrew Green, Jen Hoskin, Don Love, Cheryl Petty, Marjon Phur, Lotte Rivers, Lotte Rivers, Keith Saunders, Terina Saunders, Spencer Shute, Ash Smith, Kevin Smith, Margo Smith, Kate Tinson, and welcomes new trainees; Deb Aston and Ian Banks.

Chaetodontoplus duboulayi

Bill, Kate and Ian

Cairns – Outer Reef
A Cairns based team, including Tim Alexander, Bill Barker, Margo Smith, Kate Tinson, Andrew Green, Don Love, Sylvia Buchanan, Tom and Nicola Davis, and Toni Cooper were able to survey a number of outer reefs with the support of local dive operators. Special mention must go out to Sunlover Reef Cruises, TUSA, and Pro Dive for their support and for accommodating our needs underwater. Access to the outer reef would have been impossible without their help. From the 24th June until the 6th July the crew went out on day charters and 3 day trips to survey a range of outer reefs in the Cairns region. As predicted, fish diversity was high with approximately 70-110 fish species being recorded per 50m transect. Once again, Surgeonfish, parrotfish, and damselfish all proved tricky and contributed to many long nights poring over reference books. While many surveyors knew what they were in for after the WA leg, it was still a bit of a shock to the system to come back from a dive with 60-90 species per block!

A friendly and persistent visitor

Echinothrix calamaris

Great Keppel Island
After Cairns, the crew split up and while some were off on a bareboat charter around the Whitsundays (Rick, Kate, Margo, Bill, Ian and Sylvia), Tom and Nicola, Andrew and Toni headed over to Great Keppel Island. After a ‘delayed arrival’ to the island, the crew didn’t waste any time getting back into the water for some surveys. Fergie from the GKI Holiday Village kindly made logistics lot easier, providing the crew with a car and trailer for the week for which everyone was most grateful! As expected, the fish diversity was much less than Cairns with some sites on GKI only recording 17 species as opposed to 104 on the outer reef! The most common of which were Pomacentrus cf. milleri (which we have now confirmed is actually Pomacentrus wardi) and hundreds of Atrosalarius fuscus. Over the 6 days the crew managed to get 10 sites and 26 surveys done – A cracking effort!

Point Lookout, Stradbroke Island

Pomacentrus wardi

Stradbroke Island
The Whitsunday team and GKI team reunited on Stradbroke Island where they welcomed new RLS recruits; Deb Aston and Ian Banks. Deb kindly brought her boat over which meant the team had a little more flexibility in terms of site allocation. Outside the island at Flat and Shag Rock’s diversity and abundance was high, as was the water temp (21 degrees). Contrast to sites inside the bay, where temperatures were a much cooler 17 degrees and species richness and visibility was significantly less.

Surface swim

Amphiprion akindynos

Byron Bay
As the trip started to wind up, the team whittled down to just Don Love, Margo and Ash, and Toni in Byron Bay. The crew had a couple of great dives out on Julian Rocks with Sundive (albeit a little tough against the current). Big snapper and Yellow-tail Kingfish frequented the transect line and the whales were in full chorus. Surveying a site outside the sanctuary zone proved a little trickier with both location and weather working against the team. But after a few extra days in Byron, Don and Toni managed to get one survey outside the SZ on the “Wollongbar” better known to locals as “The Wreck” off Main Beach, Byron. It was the last dive of the mammoth expedition and Don (The shipwreck guru who survived the ENTIRE trip from start to finish) got to end the trip on a wreck dive!

There are a number of people and organisations that helped make this trip possible, it is this loyalty and support which makes this program so successful. It goes without saying the volunteers are invaluable, and the hours and hours of work never go unnoticed! There are also many others who helped make this epic trip a success;

The friends and family who opened their homes to the RLS team:

Chris Robertson
Chas Simpson
Penny and Ted Wearne
Tom and Nicola Davis

And the accommodating tourism and dive operators who provided in-kind support and local knowledge:

Sunlover Reef Cruises (http://www.sunlover.com.au/)
TUSA Dive (http://www.tusadive.com/)
ProDive (http://www.prodive-cairns.com.au)
Fergie from Great Keppel Island Holiday Village (http://www.gkiholidayvillage.com.au/)
Sun Dive (http://www.sundive.com.au/)
Calypso Dive (http://www.calypsodive.com/)

Well done and thank you everyone!