DIVE LOG AUSTRALASIA FEB 2025 ISSUE 410

even better for the serious underwater photogrpahers amongst us, the fish are quite used to divers. We encountered a solitary Potato Cod. It decided to hang around for half an hour with its new two-legged friends, hoping for a feed. After that, My buddy and I set of to explore the many tunnels and coral overhangs and swim throughs in the area. Schools of fish flittered about. Some were in snooze mode resting in the dark quiet shadows under the coral. The highlight for me was a school of beautiful Diagonal Sweetlip. They swam in a relaxed fashion across the reef in the bright sunshine, one of most beautiful sights to observe anywhere on the reef. On the next dive, we had planned a Potato Cod feed only to be reminded of the often-quoted phrase. “The fish are wild and do not come at your command” No Cod turned up and so we went exploring. Almost immediately, we encountered a tame Camouflage Groper called Epinephelus polyphekadion. When these fish are big enough, they are so powerful, probably able to see off most sharks. They are close to the top of the pecking order. Like all high end predators, their young fall prey to other reef predators until they get to a good adult size. We spent many pleasureable moments communing with this majestic creature. Next, a very tame Bump Headed Parrotfish came in to check us out. We followed it around for a while whilst it foraged across the reef. The trip out to Osprey reef that night was bumpy due to the brisk SE winds but not too bad. 2024 has

The sleek lines of the magnificent Grey Reef Shark

Curious BumpHead Parrotfish, Bulbometapon muricatus

Dotted Sweetlip, Plectorhinchus pica

clear and blue and the reef was in excellent shape. We regularly encountered schools of Bump Head Parrotfish. Some of the schools were over twenty individuals. I am quite sure that during the drift, there were certainly over two hundred of these giant

been a challenging year on the reef as there has been a lot of big seas and rough weather as it has done here in Sydney. Once at Osprey Reef, we did a long drift dive at the North Wall. The sun was shining, the water was

DIVE LOG Australasia #410 - February‘25 71

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