Back in April, I was lucky enough to attend my first Reef Life Survey trip on the East Coast of Australia in Jervis Bay, New South Wales. Still being a trainee RLS diver and having completed all my training thus far in South Australian waters, this was a scary prospect for me. More fish to count, new species to learn - the pressure was on! .... New RLS trainee diver, Flora Jennifer, talks about her Jervis Bay survey weekend with the RLS crew.
In April 2021, a crew of five Western Australian RLS divers chartered a 30 year old cray boat, packed their swags and dehydrated meals, and set sail for the Houtman Abrolhos Islands, 60km offshore of Geralton, for 5 days of RLS surveys and countless parrotfish encounters.
This March, a team of RLS divers headed over to the south-west corner of Western Australia to complete the fourth year of surveys in the Geographe Marine Park where they were welcomed by tens of thousands of hulafish, bullseyes and a unique endemic to the region never before recorded on an RLS survey.
In late December 2020, a keen team of RLS volunteers jumped aboard the sailing catamaran Eviota for 2 weeks of surveys on the Outer Great Barrier Reef, Keppel Islands and Capricorn & Bunker Group.
It was an exciting but rather scary prospect – to brave the COVID world and fly overseas, ‘outside’ of Australia (gasp!) to survey the remote, historical, and amazing wonderland of Norfolk Island. A team of five RLS divers did just that to continue monitoring the unique marine life found around Norfolk Island within the Australian Temperate East Marine Park.
