Muddy Adventures

I went to the foreshore of our village with my son (9y) a week ago as he is always keen on some bare-handed eel catching. No pretty rock pools in this estuarine site, just mud, rubble, worms, oysters and sponges. Also Velvet Swimming Crabs (Necora puber) (named Devil Crabs locally as they are quite pinchy) and Rock Gobies (Gobius paganellus). I tried my hand at some TSCFWANF (Top Side Close Focus Wide Angle No Flash). This obviously resulted in a blown out sky. Next time I will try to use a home-made (milk container) softbox for a strobe to light up the foreground. Have not been in the water much, so long time no post. Hope to do some snorkelling or diving soon, weather permitting…

Snorkelling at Trevallas Cove

Rumours had it that the viz was great at the North Coast last weekend, and as it was pretty bad at the south Coast, I found some time to drive up to St. Agnes (buying new fins on the way) with the fisheye lens+dome. I was not disappointed: look at that blue sea! The water was clear, the sand was white and the seaweeds were waving on the rock faces. I saw flounder, mullet (thicklipped and red), seabass, sand eels, corkwing wrasse, sand smelt and most interestingly: weeverfish. Swimming above the sand with yellow fins and burying themselves so only the eyes are visible. I saw one half a meter deep on the beach, so it is advisable to wear surfshoes (see here). Unfortunately I could not get a good photo. I tried to take photos with the strobe but that did not really work so all photos here are natural light, trading off ISO, shutterspeed and depth of field to get the right exposure. There were Blue jellyfish around (small, 2-4 inches), and I tried to shoot them over-under but that was a bit too ambitious. Some easier shots instead. I hope to find some big Barrel jellyfish in the coming weeks, as they will be a lot easier to shoot! As the fish proved a bit too fast, and the over-unders a bit too difficult, I tried to take some shots of seaweeds instead. Although I mainly knew it from more sheltered locations, there was quite a bit of Mermaid’s tresses Chorda filum on this exposed coast. There was a lot of discoid forkweek Polyides rotundus on the sand but also on the rocks, and often covered in Falkenbergia. Other species that were abundant were Hairy sandweed Cladostephus spongiosus and Desmarestia ligulata. Hope to return soon!