Arrived bright and early after driving back from Airey's on a rainy but exciting night to MUUC dive trip.
There was much talk of a scandal amid 2 eskies (ch'u'lly b'u'ns) having being "stolen," including bacon and beer, not neccesarily in that order of importance.
We took both boats out, I drove Little Boat, which ended up running Big Boat down, possibly due to the lack of Auxilliary engne wieight (poor thing had been serviced, then fell off the boat on the freeway. Another trip - another broken engine.)
First dive was at the Wormy Reef (formerly Dumping Ground according to Evan), a couple of basalt shelves. Saw a shelf
full of zooanthids, the usual fish in a hideyhole.Three friendly young squid were the highlight, as they did a lovely dance and allowed me the priviledge of close up photo action.
For later that night, we collected scallops and mussels and ate them fresh off the barbie! We are Kings!
As part of my ecological education, I embarked on a Rockpool ramble with some 16 grade 3 students.
Amid thier smiles and enthusiasm, we found rockpool shrimp, turbos (Jourdan's Turban shell), and the flesh eating shells that drill into the turbos, inject acid and *sllluuurp* out the goey goodness inside. Amazing!
Also, the basalt shelf was build many millions of years prior by an offshore volcano, last night marked by a massie container ship, many kilometres offshore.
Overlying this was sandstone (compacted dunes) and the limestone (compacted shells, and therefore more of a white colour), creating the beautfully, yet fragile, red and orange cliff tops which make Airey's Inlet so unique.
Regina delivered this enformation seamlessly, and conjoured up much mistery also. In a quiet vioce, which was very tonal, she managed to have the majority of the little tykes spellbound for up to 4 or 5 minutes at a time, and made it look simple.
