405_April_24

Lord Howe Moray.

Within minutes of entering the water we encountered many fish species that are common at Norfolk Island, but are rarely seen at other destinations. These included surge wrasse, green wrasse, Norfolk cardinalfish, notchheaded marblefish, Norfolk chromis, painted morwong and yellowbanded wirrah. There were also many familiar fishes that are seen on the subtropical reefs of southern Queensland and northern New South Wales, including species of mullet, butterflyfish, damsels, surgeonfish, unicornfish, goatfish, lizardfish and wrasse. Emily Bay is only 4m deep, so an easy snorkelling spot, and towards the end of this first exploration we found a species we had hoped to see – the Lord Howe

moray. This moray is mostly seen here and at Lord Howe Island, and is one that has eluded us for many years. We were delighted to find not one, but three, including one that was out in the open on the sand. Over the next few days, we snorkelled both Emily Bay and Slaughter Bay every chance we got, enjoying 20m visibility at times. We observed and photographed over twenty fish species we had never seen before, including blue drummer, masked moki (morwong), Norfolk Island blennies, knife wrasse, seagrass wrasse, a tropical conger eel and a convict snake eel. On these snorkels we also saw green turtles, a southern eagle ray, grey morays, stout morays, trevally, dart, flutemouthes, rockcods, scorpionfish and numerous banded snake eels.

Masked Moki or Morwong.

Doubleheader.

18

DIVE LOG Australasia #405 - April ‘24

www.divelog.net.au