Victorian Pier diving at its Best!

G'day Wetpixies,

over the past few days the local diving community has been all a buzz about the diving at Rye Pier. With the warmer weather

and rising temps in the Bay it has been visited by some large schools of Mullet and Trevally which has attracted the attention

of two large Wobbegongs one of them 2.5m in length. These carpet sharks are uncommon in Victorian waters and add that to

the usual plethora of life found there and you get some fantastic Victorian shore diving. Here's a few shots from my dives there

over the past few days, enjoy!

A Pygmy Leatherjacket Brachaluterus jacksoniensis, skulking about on a pylon.

Pot-belly Seahorse Hippocampus bleekeri,foraging about on the sand for mysid shrimps.

An Eastern Stargazer Kathetostoma laeve, gulping as it buries itself.

Wobbegong portrait (Orectolobus ornatus I think?).

And thoughtfully provided by the fishos on the pier above

a chair to take a break in, BYO drink or reading material.

Hope you've enjoyed.

Cheers,

Jim

PS- Hey Cal its time to get of that and do some real diving !

Cool shot of the Stargazer with the mouth open.

That stargazer is awsome

Where was the call mate?

Cool to see wobby's

Stargazer is an excellent shot and well timed.

Hi Jim,

Some great shots, love the wild 'hair' of that seahorse.

BTW the wobbegong is the newly described banded wobbegong (Orectolobus halei) which was for a long time confused with the ornate wobbegong.

Regards

Nigel

Where was the call mate?

 

Cool to see wobby's

 

Stargazer is an excellent shot and well timed.

Thanks Steve and sorry about not ringing you in, it was fairly hastily arranged between Link and I.

Maybe we can catch up this weekend, will give you a buzz.

Hi Jim,

 

Some great shots, love the wild 'hair' of that seahorse.

 

BTW the wobbegong is the newly described banded wobbegong (Orectolobus halei) which was for a long time confused with the ornate wobbegong.

 

Regards

 

Nigel

Thanks for the ID Nigel I was a bit hesitant about naming it and was aware there had been some revision lately. So what kind of Wobby are you then?

Here's another couple of shots from the night dive.

Here's a Pot-belly Seahorse that I was totally absorbed in photographing

when the Wobby scared the CR@P out of me as it buzzed me!

And another view of the Stargazer, I love getting CFWA shots of these fish.

Cheers,

Jim

Hi

I like your 2, 3, 6 and 7 shots. I´ve never seen a Stargazer before, curious animal

AWESOME !!!!!!!!

Jimmy I am so jealous of that wobby, the skin textures are unreal.

See you soon

Cal

Hi Jim,

 

Some great shots, love the wild 'hair' of that seahorse.

 

BTW the wobbegong is the newly described banded wobbegong (Orectolobus halei) which was for a long time confused with the ornate wobbegong.

 

Regards

 

Nigel

Hi Nigel,

How do you tell the difference between the two?

Jim's picture is certainly clear enough to see that the coloration is heavily mottled and not at all like banding?

There are quite a few of these things down around Torquay and Anglesea, but the ones down there are real big mongrels with bad attitudes; no senses of humour whatsoever. . . .

Bruce...

Love the hairy sea horse. Never seen one before...

Once I went fishing and caught and caught a stargazer. I thought this cannot be a fish ahah. Pretty funny looking creature...

Hi Bruce,

For a long time the ornate and banded wobby were thought to be the same species, even though they look very different. Scientist thought that the ornate was the juvenile form and the banded the adult form. But recent research has corrected this. Best way to tell the difference is size for one thing, ornate only reach just over a metre in length, while the banded reaches 3m in length. Also range, banded is found in temperate waters, the ornate tropical water, except they do cross regions from Sydney to Brisbane. There are a couple of wobby articles on my website for more info about these interesting sharks Nigel Marsh Photography.

Regards

Nigel