Robert's Ramblings

I remember the first time I laid eyes on this scene 25 years ago as vividly as if it were yesterday.

This sweeping stretch coastline from Normanville to where the road heads inland and down on to Cape Jervis overlooks Lady Bay out to sea and Rapid Head out to the west.

Last night we were treated to the most incredible sunset I have ever seen and I nearly did not even notice as we were driving home from Rapid Bay.

Suddenly Jennifer gave a yelp of delight and screamed 'pull over'. Glancing back over my left should I saw it. By the time I got may camera setup on the tripod it was nearly over but even the aftermath was spectacular.

This time she got the best shot of the amazing colour on her camera phone and I got the beginnings of the sky changing from a full sky of fiery orange back to twilight blue.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 700, Lady Bay', 1/5s f/7.1 ISO160 15mm

Capturing movement in water is a tricky business.

If you are too fast the water looks like frozen ice. Too slow and it looks like mist. Somewhere either side of these extremes there is a range of exposure times where the movement simply makes the water look blurred.

Then there is that sweet spot where like magic you can see the flow and feel the liquidity of the water's movement.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 699, Liquidity', 5s f/16 ISO160 15mm

This amazing sponge has been a deep water landmark for me since the first time I cam across it more than 4 years ago.

We really do get some big sponges here in South Australia and have some incredible sponge gardens which leave anything tropical in their salty wake.

What we have is cold to temperate nutrient rich water, strong tidal currents and with some of the very deep water through Backstairs Passage we have diving here to rival anywhere for richness, colour, diversity and most importantly uniqueness.

This almost regal specimen is nearly a meter tall and even though it's not far (swimming distance) from Adelaide's most popular recreational dive site my guess it that not many will have ventured deep enough and far enough to find it.

I'm completely in the dark about sponges so perhaps it's about time I learned.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 698, Symbolic Sponge', 1/200 f/10 ISO320 15mm

We all like to see symmetry in nature. Animals balanced from left to right are common place but most curious of all are animals structured as a prime numbers.

Whether we realise it or not prime number configurations are common in plants and we see them everyday so they just seem normal. Primes in the animal kingdom however just seem wrong and especially so when that number is eleven.

The eleven-armed sea star, Coscinasterias muricata, is our largest starfish and very common on most shallow reefs of southern Australia. It's our Oceans' Eleven!

This sea star is out to lunch, literally and is currently feeding on a group of commensurate fan worms in about 17m of water in the Port Noarlunga Gap


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 697, Ocean's Eleven', 1/200 f/6.3 ISO160 15mm

Rapid Bay is becoming a bit of a regular drawcord for me not just for the diving but for the land and seascapes as well.

Here at the eastern end, fishers perch precariously on the rocks while a gentle sea laps on the shingled beach.

It's great to have a moody sky again after the recent wall-to-wall blue skies.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 696, Precariously Perched', 1/320 f/7.1 ISO160 15mm

The Adelaide City Council's 'Free Wall' project and this space under the Morphett Street Bridge is a place I come back to photograph over and over.

There is always something different and you never know who you might meet.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 695, The Wall', 2.5s f/8 ISO100 40mm PanoX3

How do you know you have entered the personal space of a Victorian Scalyfin (Parma victoriae)? Easy, because he comes out and starts headbutting your camera!

On the plus side is that you get plenty of photo opportunities before pretending to be chased away.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 694, Bossy Scalyfin', 1/60s f/22 ISO800 15mm

I'm revisiting this protected location where I had previously noted a mated pair of Leafy Seadragons (Phycodurus eques) and to my surprise I found a new young adult while the original pair were nowhere to be seen.

Although the water was quite clear with 8-12m visibility there was a roaring current with all sorts of things in the water drifting past. Capturing this image required me to wait for the debris to be reasonably clear but because of the very strong current this leafy was happy to stay down low in its den rather that drift up and away, a behavior I would normally have expected.

I am quite excited to have identified a new leafy dragon here after around 2 months of revisiting the same location.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 693, The Dragon's Den', 1/60s f/22 ISO800 15mm

Lying on the ocean floor looking up at this school of Old Wives (Enoplosus armatus) I am treated to a moment where the school have created their very own jetty pylon.

Their unfortunate common name refers to the sound made when a fish is caught on a fishing line. I wonder if the plural of the common name should be 'Old Wifes' instead?

As shown the visibility down at Rapid Bay is still very good even with some recent bad weather. This site holds up very well to periods of bad weather from the west through to the south which will be our most common type of 'weather' as we head into summer.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 692, A Pile of Old Wives', 1/60s f/14 ISO640 15mm

Driving past this field of wheat south of the city near Maslins Beach I noticed a set of tracks running perfectly straight off into the distance.

The rest of the field was completely untouched and it was this interesting feature which grabbed my attention and made me pull over to capture this image.

I'm glad I did.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 691, Counting Gold', 1/500s f/10 ISO320 17mm

If I were to stare at this with my eyes for too long I am sure my eyes would never recover.

With 700 Lumens of light coming from a single LED and even being behind a diffusing lens, all the eyes would see is blinding white. That's where the camera can see something we cant; the detail.

In the very centre you can see the square shape of the square LED die and in each successive hexagonal element it is progressively displaced off center. By shifting the colour balance and saturating the differences you can really see how the diffusing lens not only 'diffuses' the light but also creates a rainbow of colours as the light refracts through the the individual elements.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 690, Diffused', 1/500s f/7.1 ISO100 100mm

Well after its long stint and now almost a landmark on the western Adelaide plains the Cavalia big top is being topped!

The the company with its performers, the horse and its entourage are all gone, the internals have been cleared away and the gutted big top now stands like an empty shell.

So long Cavalier, you were a great landmark for a little while but soon you will gone elsewhere.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 689, Topping The Big Top', 8s f/5.0 ISO1600 70mm

In 1848 a two-masted 225 ton wooden brig named 'The Tigress' set out from Scotland with a load of general cargo bound for Port Adelaide, South Australia. After such a long and difficult journey she made it to within 50 nautical miles of Port Adelaide before gale force winds swept her onto reef south of Port Noarlunga. In the subsequent efforts to get to the shore two souls were lost, the captain Alexander Guthrie and a passenger Francis Frew.

In 1970 the Scuba Divers Club of South Australia moved the anchor from the original Tigress wreck site and placed it here at along the reef at Port Noarlunga.

Most divers who dive the inside reef at Port Noarlunga are unaware of the history here and simply use this as the half way marker for their dive.

My thanks to local maritime historians Steve Reynolds and Christopher Deane and their web articles for the back story.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 688, Gloomy Memorial', 1/200s f/8 ISO320 15mm

The outer reef at Port Noarlunga is not dived very often as most divers prefer the protection inside the reef.

Make the effort to climb up and over and large schools of playful big silver drummer Kyphosus sydneyanus will zoom in to investigate. Here the drummer like to play and feed in the impact zone and feed on bits of algae debris in the turbid white water. At low tide when the ocean does not break over the reef they just seem to want to play games with each other as they wait for the rising tide or swell.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 687, Silver Drummer', 1/200s f/5.6 ISO160 15mm

All the travel advertisements seem to espouse the beauty of white sandy beaches, the finer the sand and the whiter the better!

I love beaches of shingle. They seem ancient and speak of harsh conditions where fine sand would have or has been completely swept away.

The best part of all is not having to clean the sand out from everything when you leave!


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 686, Coloured Pebbles', 1/200s f/22 ISO100 17mm

Passing by the 'Cavalia' big top almost every day has given me the chance to see so many different moods of this curious structure.

This view is just a little different with a wide open lens and intentionally out of focus.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 685, Big Top Bokeh', 1/13s f/2.8 ISO100 100mm

If you are a local and spend most of your time around the Adelaide metropolitan beaches then you could be excused for thinking we are looking south.

Many Adelaide visitors make this mistake and then wonder why they can't enjoy the sunset here. This view is looking west and now that we are heading into summer the sun will still descend behind the headland.

I don't usually make the effort to explore the coastline around Rapid Bay, at least not above the the waterline. I plan to do it more often.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 684, Rapid Bay', 1/400s f/2.8 ISO640 200mm

For some reason while standing here I could not get that childhood nursery rhyme out of my head.

"Baa baa black sheep have you any wool? ...". Except these sheep only had black heads.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 683, Three Bags Full', 1/400s f/2.8 ISO640 200mm

We have some of the most colourful and interesting sea stars here in our Southern waters but I have to admit that I often overlook them as I search for the more 'exotic' creatures such as nudibranchs, cephalopods or dragons.

Sea stars are everywhere and not just many of the same type but a wide variety of species as well. Even sea stars of the same species often look very different from each other as any biscuit star will beautifully demonstrate.

While diving near the 'T' at Rapid Bay Jetty I came across this Red Sea Star, Pentagonaster dubeni, which was as visually conspicuous as an orange safely flare as it sat perched atop some bottom structure.

Perhaps I will pay a little more attention to the sea stars in the future and give the 'exotics' a break for a while!.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 682, Starry Eyed Surprise', 1/160s f/13 ISO640 40mm+2D

Anyone who has dived Rapid Bay Jetty over the last 6 weeks would know how bad the visibility has been.

There have been days there when you could not see more than 50cm through the milky brine which always seems to follow a period of northerly fetch. I have heard many different opinions on why the visibility here is so changeable. Some people suggest that it has been 'bad' since the new jetty was built a few years ago due to disturbance of the sea bed however I can remember these 'milky' days from when I first started diving and the original jetty was still intact and in use.

My thoughts are that the 'milk' is cause by colloidal gypsum, a legacy of years of gypsum loading here and the the long term exposure of the area to gypsum dust both directly and through run-off.
I am sure the sea bed surrounding the area is loaded with this super fine gymsum. A prolonged northerly fetch creates a ground surge which lifts the dust back into the water making it milky blue.

The visibility here is very good at the moment at around 10-15m. It's an odd kind of visibility with the the milkiness still there but at least now you can enjoy the old wives swimming among the pylons.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 681, Rapid Bay Looking Good', 1/160s f/11 ISO640 22mm+2D

I came across this pair of cuttlefish hovering over the broken bottom under Rapid Bay Jetty.

At first I thought they might be juvenile giant cuttlefish (Sepia apama) but as I watched I started to wonder if they were already full grown.

After some research and further deliberations I've decided the only thing I can be sure of is that they are very cute regardless.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 680, Cute Cuttlefish', 1/160s f/11 ISO640 40mm+2D

Anyone who has seen the movie 'Life of Pi' will be familiar with the gorgeous golden tones the producer has rendered into some of the cinematic sequences.

It reminded me of how the 'golden hour' has become almost sacred to me in terms of filling the world with the most gorgeous light imaginable.

Here is my local Henley Beach in all of its golden glory!


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 679, Henley Beach Gold', 10s f/16 ISO160 15mm

The sunset photographers were out in force tonight down here at Henley Beach.

What started out as a promising spectacular sunset with the sun periodically bursting forth from rents in the cloudy western sky soon proved to be a little less than hoped for. There was just too much cloud and the sun disappeared for the evening well before sunset.

While packing up for the evening I met another local Adelaide landscape photographer David Fielding and we spent the next half an hour on the cold and windy foreshore discussing landscapes, lightroom and luminosity! (As you do!). If we had been a little smarter the cafe just back from the beach would have been a better option.

The cold eventually took its toll and I grabbed this last image before heading back home.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 678, Twilight Pastels', 6s f/6.3 ISO1600 15mm

I have now seen three difference species of ray down at a Rapid Bay over the last few days.

This guy is a masked stingaree (Trygonoptera personata) and although common to South Australian coastal waters was not actually recognised as a unique species until relatively recently, in fact, about the same time I learned to scuba dive.

When I had seen these on previous dives I had mistaken them for juveniles but this little guy is probably a fully grown individual and was happy to just lay there and watch as we watched back.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 677, Being Watched', 1/100s f/18 ISO320 100mm+20mmExt

Over the last month I have been following the progress of a brooding Tasseled Anglerfish (Rhycherus filamentosus) with a clutch of eggs.

I have been quite wrong about hatching timing with my first prediction being the last week of October. Finally the little guys are hatching and on this dive I save and watch for nearly an hour as some of the little anglerfish worked their way out of the casing. This is where it gets interesting.

During the early stages it looked like the clutch was attached to the back wall of some structure and the parent lay against the eggs to guard them. On this dive I watch the parent collected the the large mass into a single large clump and vigorously shake them sending little anglerfish who had hatched but were stuck in the egg-mass to be thrown clear.

In this image you can count at least two babies already clear and the one in the centre just emerging from its shell.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 676, Birthing Anglerfish', 1/100s f/16 ISO320 100mm+20mmExt

Our local Southern Calamari, Sepioteuthis australis, are amazing creatures able to change their body colour at will to match the surrounds.

During a moonless night however their chromatophores attempt to match the darkness and saturate with all kinds of intense colours. The moment you hit them with a a flash of white light they they show colours you would never have imagined. Just beautiful!

Despite the darkness this guy is keeping an eye out as we are diving in a popular squidding location off Rapid Bay Jetty. I'm sure he's safe from the chef's pan, at least for now!


Photo: Robert Rath, 'Day 675, Keeping An Eye Out' 1/100s f/18 ISO100+20mmExt

Inside this 'Disneyland like' structure is Cavalia, I am told one of the greatest horse shows ever!

Also inside the tent is the rest of my beautiful family reveling in the experience. So why are they on the inside and me on the outside? Now I am asking myself that very same question after being told I would have loved it.

Oh well I got a good photo of tent at least.


Photo: Robert Rath, 'Day 674, Cavalia' 3.2s f/7.1 ISO100 17mm

Today I did the rounds again checking up on my expecting anglerfish and leafy sea dragon and keeping up with the general comings and goings under Rapid Bay Jetty.

While I was down there a school of Six-spined Leatherjacket (Meuschenia freycineti) decided to make me their leader and follow me around. Where I turned around to take a photograph the question on their lips was obvious.


Photo: Robert Rath, 'Day 673, Dude, What Kind of Fish Are You?' 1/100s f/16 ISO320 100mm+20mmExt

A few days ago there were four baby Tasseled Anglerfish (Rhycherus filamentosus) in this location.

When I came back and saw only one my first thought was that something had taken (eaten) them. Now that I have the image on the screen it is clear that they have 'hatched' and left of the own accord.


Photo: Robert Rath, 'Day 672, And Then There Was One' 1/100s f/18 ISO320 100mm+20mmExt