Robert’s Ramblings

‘It stands in the air like it just don’t care!’

With the track closed due to an incident, in came the Huracan to wait it out.

The moment it came to a stop and that growling engine cut, a shot of compressed nitrogen to the four inbuilt jacks lifted the beast into the air.

With the wheels off the ground those sticky rubber tyres remain conformal in temperature and in shape ready for the track again when the all clear is given.

In the mean time, ‘It stands in the air like it just don’t care!’ says everything!


#cars #Huracan #Lamborghini #motorsports #racing #SuperTrofeo #thebend #highkey #blackandwhite

Inquisitive, opportunistic and oh so photogenic!

The wavy grubfish is just as eager to please the lens as wait for me to disturb some unsuspecting lunch!

Move a rock or disturb some weed and wavy grubfish will be there in a moment to see if you have provided lunch.

Anything you do which might drive some tiny critter into unprotected territory is what the opportunist wavy grubfish seems to be waiting for.

For me, oh so photogenic – regardless of the reason!


#Critters #Scuba #Diving #fish #Marinelife #Parapercishaackei #Reef #Edithburgh #Southaustralia #WavyGrubfish

For more than half the years I have lived I’ve looked out to the east from the seaside town of Edithburgh to see the lighthouse of Troubridge Island on the horizon.

Being a diver I had never given much thought to it as being a destination. If I was into photographing seabirds maybe things would have been different as this is a designated wildlife sanctuary.

You can hire out the island and stay there if you like. You’ll be ferried out and left in isolated peace until your nominated departure date. No way on or off unless you have your own boat! Sounds blissful to me.

Last weekend I finally got to see Troubridge Island from this new and wonderful perspective.


#Troubridgeisland #island #sanctuary #lighthouse #aerial #photography #edithburgh #southaustralia #ocean

I have no idea how many cowfish images I have but the good ones seem to elude me. Still, they make me smile every time one comes into my view.

They are bright and cheerful, cheeky, comical, just a little nervous (am I anthropomorphising too much?), sometimes curious but to me always camera shy.

Please, just a little moue for the camera is all I want!

Oh well little cowfish, perhaps next time…


#aracanaaurita #cowfish #critters #diving #fish #jetty #macro #night #paintedboxfish #photography #rapidbay #scuba #shawscowfish #southaustralia #underwater

One thing scuba divers get to experience is the curiosity of wildlife unimpeded by fear. It is something most walkers of wilderness and bush will rarely find as animal run or hide from an apex predator.

Go for a dive however and the animals pretty quickly work out how slow, clumsy and awkward we are and return to their business as if we were not even there. Then there are the curious ones.

Most fish simply come in close to check us out. Others do flybys. Horseshoe leather jackets take their curiosity to a new level. While this lot is admiring their reflections, potential partners or adversaries in the dome of my camera there is another lot behind me grabbing and tugging bits of my hair.

After a while it was simply overwhelming and I had to move on, … to the next lot of curious creatures!


#Scuba #diving #edithburgh #troubridgepoint #horseshoeleatherjacket #leatherjacket #ocean #fish #curiosity

For some people, Easter is a sacred time for remembering and being grateful. For others it’s just another habitual celebration of something long forgotten.

For some, this time has been anything but joyful – from being locked down with the dreaded ‘C’ or other serious health issues to dealing with the extremes of war, oppression and displacement. Our thoughts go out to those whose Easter has not been what it should be.

We are so grateful to have been lucky enough to spend this Easter with family and friends, and would wish the same for everyone.

Happy Easter, R&J

#Edithburgh #easter #fullmoon #moon #ocean #boating

There is a very good reason why my chest is bruised blue and yellow and yet I still can’t wipe the grin from my face…

Last Saturday I got to experience 20 minutes in this extraordinary, audacious piece of machinery completely giving all trust to a driver who now has my respect for life.

My first 10 seconds on the track was full of anticipation, pensive enthusiasm and excitement. My next 30 seconds expanded into something akin to managed (just) terror. I found myself teetering on the verge of panic and perhaps my pride more than self preservation dictated the next moments of this expanding experience.

I briefly glimpsed a similar moment as a teenager, a moment where I had to trust another soul with my very existence (thank you Simon). Forty years later for the second time ever I gave that same trust to Ben, the man behind the wheel of this beautiful yet brutal racing car.

I spent the remainder of the first lap in a kind of detached mediation, calm but aware of my corporeal body being flung around like a rag dog in a hurricane (Huracan!). By the second lap I was beginning to enjoy the very physical experience of being in a serious racing car. By the third lap I was starting to connect with the car, the track and the driver. After that it was all joy.

Thank you Ben for an amazing experience I will never forget.

#Lamborghini #Huracan #SuperTrofeo #motorsports #racing #cars #thebend

I wax lyrical about Port Noarlunga Reef at every opportunity. It is not only one of Adelaide’s closest dive sites but also amazingly diverse in what can be experienced.

One of my favourite dives here is in the deep gap that separates the north and south sections of the reef. Simply called ‘The Gap’, a complex maze like structure of limestone bommies, makes its way south from the northern reef section down to a sandy, silty base around 16m before climbing back up to the southern reef section.

The Gap is a wonderful place to explore full of large limestone boulders adorned with sponges, gorgonian corals, and algaes. Large schools of silver drummer and white trevally dazzle while big dusky morwongs more than a meter in length raise the heart rate just a little as they appear out of the gloom or from behind bommies. The gap is also a great place to get completely lost unless you are diligent with good compass work.

At night a dive in the Gap takes on an eerie other worldly nature. Bommies become giants with manes of flowing kelp lurking in the dark. Every flash and flicker of silver in the distant light of the torch-beam makes my heart skip a beat or two. The sand is alive with molluscs while littered remains of crab mark the last meals of a nearby octopuses.

On Sunday night’s dive I found nestled in a challis-like sponge this beautiful black cowrie with its shell of mottled gold. So named ‘black’ as their black mantle hides the polished shell beneath. This one is feeding on the algae that covers the cup of the sponge. I have noticed cowries feeding like this in bowl like sponge structures on previous dives. Perhaps the silt collect down deep in the gap promotes the algal growth and attracts the cowries.

I finished the dive with the long swim back to the jetty, to fresh air and to the quizzical looks of passersby as I emerged from the inky black water in the torchlight. If only they knew what was down there. Gold!


#blackcowrie #humpbackedcowrie #scuba #diving #underwater #photography #portnoarlunga #southaustralia #sponges #thegap #zoilathersites #night

This was supposed to by my first dive on January 1, 2022 but … It is true that no plan survives long into its enactment and on this occasion technical issues delayed things and I finally got into the water 6 minutes after midnight.

I had two objectives for last night’s dive. Find an Apple watch rumoured to have been lost off the jetty during the day and find some interesting things to photograph.

After about 20 minutes of serious watch hunting I gave up and reverted to critters. The first really interesting encounter was a common octopus about the size of the two of my hands together. We entertained each other for about 5 minutes before she invited me back to her lair. Unfortunately without a bite from Wonderland Alice’s cake I was never going to fit through the tiny entrance.

Then I noticed a baby Port Jackson shark resting on the sand and the photo session was on. For the next while I discovered 3 more baby sharks, flounder, flathead and numerous crabs of all shapes and sizes.

Later I found myself enamoured by a massive school of small bait-fish which shimmered and flashed in my torchlight as they moved like a murmuration of silver starlings in the dark and led me to … an Apple watch lying quietly in the sea-grass. Imagine my surprised when I picked it up to be greeted with its wallpaper image, the time and battery remaining!

Post dive, Apple watch and owner have been reunited and I got my ‘Baby Shark’ photograph.


#portjacksonshark #juvenile #shark #portnoarlunga #night #scuba #diving #underwaterphotography

There is something both beautiful and terrifying about comet Leonard’s appearance in our evening sky. This time last year no one knew it even existed.

For the last 40,000 years the comet has been hurtling inbound from the depths of our solar system on its 80,000-year orbit. Greg J Leonard discovered this expectant visitor back in January and his namesake finally became visible to the naked eye this month.

Beautiful because visible comets are a rarity in our night skies. Terrifying because we had no prior knowledge of its inbound journey and then how terribly close to earth it came. It is a reminder that we have no idea what is out there coming for a visit and very little time to react when discovered.

This time, astronomers and stargazers around the world got to see comet Leonard as a delightful visitor to our solar system and to our night sky.


#landscape #astrophotography #comet #leonard #c/2021-a1 #palmer #southaustralia #darksky