We headed up to Botany Bay and Sydney Harbour recently to train a few keen volunteers – Jack O’Connor, George Wotton, Peter McGee, Dave Thomas, Paul Sharp, Silke Stuckenbrock and Karen Raubenheimer. Southerly swells and dredging in Botany Bay (and the associated 3 m visibility!) limited site selection here, resulting in surveys being spread out in Sydney Harbour and Port Hacking rather than focussing just in Botany Bay. Luckily we had a large team of skilled RLS divers and could spread out the effort, with two or three teams operating in different areas. Tom and Nicola Davis, Andrew Green, Bill Barker, Andy Myers, Sue Newson, Kate Tinson and Simon Tweed all chipped in to the big survey weekend.
After the first day diving near Bare Island, we headed further afield in search of clearer water – ending up at Gunnamatta Baths. This site turned out to be great for White’s seahorses (Hippocampus whitei) and Sydney seastars (Anthenea sidneyensis), and also harboured a few big fan-belly leatherjackets (Monacanthus chinensis). In Sydney Harbour, Camp Cove had fantastic viz and turned up a couple of frogfish (Batrachomoeus dubius) and some huge blue groper (Achoerodus viridis). Middle Head turned out to be a really nice dive, with plenty fish and inverts, and some nice sponges. Apparently a pod of dolphins swam past seconds after Andy and I headed in for a survey (typical!), but at least I didn’t see any photos of them to rub it in…
A huge thanks to our team of all-star RLS volunteers who also came along to help us survey the area, and also to Carl Fallon and Abyss Scuba in Botany Bay – who helped out with everything from hire discounts, site selection, to getting up at 6am to let us in the shop when we’d forgotten gear… Thanks also to Carl for giving our RLS volunteers an introductory chat about his local volunteer marine conservation group Botany Bay Watch (www.botanybaywatch.com.au). Oh – and thanks also to our boat driver Peter for the great home-made soup – we’ll be back for more!
