Cabbage Tree Bay - Long Weekend

With a long weekend, I figured it was worth getting out of my local neighbourhood and hitting one of my favourite South Sydney spots... Cabbage Tree Bay. The water was cool and clear so this is another pretty long post.

There were a few big Blue Gropers out in force. Surprisingly the Eastern Blue Groper is not actually a 'grouper' but in fact a wrasse. The juveniles are typically a greenish brown, in females this shifts to a reddish brown with age, whilst the adult male are bright blue. They can grow to be 1.2m, with a round belly, heavy scales, and thick lips.

There was also a heap of other wrasses out and about.

Senator Wrasse:

Crimson Banded Wrasse:

Maori Wrasse:

Their juvenile offspring:

And my first ever Rainbow Wrasse:

I also found a massive Old Wife, hiding down deep.

There was a couple of Indo-Pacific Sergeant's enjoying the clear water.

Not to mention an adult and child pair of Neon Damsel's.

I haven't yet figured out this black and yelllow fellow.

I also didn't know this spotty:

I found a great Blacksaddle Goatfish:

There were plenty of Black Tipped Bullseye's:

A big school of Squid:

There were Rock Cale's chewing on algae everywhere:

A terrific Fan Bellied File Fish:

I love this bay.

Three Trip Combo - Parsley Bay (X2) and Clovelly

Because of this glorious summer weather I have spent a fair bit of time underwater lately but have been a bit slack in the uploads. I thought I would post up a combo of a few different trips I have taken to Parsley Bay and Clovelly; I also have another few posts from different places that I will put up in the next week or so. 

Parsley Bay 

Despite how good it looks, it was a little murky and rough on some of those trips so the photos might be a little greener than usual. As is usual for the East Coast of Australia there were plenty of Common Stingaree's. These little guys are extremely abundant and during Captain Cook's 'first' fleet the naturalist Joseph Banks sketched the earliest known taxonomical drawing of a Common Stingaree.

This guy had made a decent sized hole digging up worms.

Lots of little fellas were trying to brave the rough seas.

A family of Common Stripeys

A duo of YellowTail Scad

I still haven't tracked down the name of this black and white striped triangle fish (have also spotted at Little Bay before)

Edit: I believe this is a Crested Morwong

Or these small pinkies.

Edit: I think this is a Sydney CardinalFish

I liked the way the light caught this tiny jelly in the murky water.

And I always find Fan-Bellied Filefish interesting.

Clovelly

Clovelly was a whole lot clearer than Parsley Bay.With Smooth Toadfish out in force.

I got a few great shots of another un-named.

And right at the end of my battery life I managed to spy a cleverly hidden Common Octopus.