Robert's Ramblings

Night diving is always great fun and often full of wonderful little surprises (big surprises are OK too so long as they are under 3m). Last night Matt and myself descended below the ever popular Pt Noarlunga Jetty just shy of midnight. The usual suspects showed up on cue and I got the chance to play a little bit more with my new rig.

About midway into the dive a little squid no bigger than a golfball turned up out on the sand. At first I thought he was one of the local Southern Dumpling Squid. The colours seemed right even if a bit pale, though you can never really tell with cephalopods. Those cute little bug eyes did not seem right though, they seemed too big for a dumpling squid. Shortly after taking this image he rose and swam directly at my camera lens. A behaviour I have never experienced with dumpling squid.

Today I had a closer look at the photograph, the eyes, the colours on the wings and the presentation of the chromatophores and decided he must be a juvenile Southern Calamari (Squid), Sepioteuthis australis.

All up we had a great dive and it was a real pity I could not convince a few other friends to join us. It seems than diving invitations are not so popular after 10pm on a normal working weeknight! Oh well, there's always next time.

More photo's from last night's dive can be found here at Midnight Pt Noarlunga (Facebook Album) or my slideshow on Flickr.

Until the next post, take care out there and keep diving ( if that's what you do! ) ...Robert

Photo: Robert Rath, juvenile Southern Calamari, Pt Noarlinga Jetty (Night). Please ask if you want to know more about how this image was taken.