Dugong and Hookah

We started out the day with a run into town (Denham) to pick up some more snapper frames for Wednesday's shark fishing. While in town I got a good look at an emu strolling along the side of the road. If I had any image editing software on this computer, I'd have a better picture for you...

Around noon we set out on the Cuvier to complete the transect runs we have been doing this week and to dive along Cindy's fish transect lines. I was excited and nervous: nervous about sharks, poisonous snakes, and not being familiar with the hookah apparatus used for breathing and super excited to get under the surface of Shark Bay!!






The big excitement for the day came right before we started our first transect run: We saw a dugong! At first I thought it was a dolphin. It was about 30 meters away when we first saw it. Sean recognized it as a dugong immediately, and I realized it could not be a dolphin because it did not have a dorsal fin. As we got closer to it, I noticed it was also much bigger than a dolphin. It was huge. I never got a look at its face, but it within a few meters of the boat a few times before swimming off. Dugong!!!!!!

After completing the transects, we set out for Cindy's fish study lines. She is thinking of redesigning the experiment, and our work today involved swimming along the lines and observing the number and types of fish present (while Cindy was thinking of ways to quantify the fish that present along these lines). We did this in both interior (shallow sea grass beds)(6 ft deep max) and edge (of the sea grass) ( a bit deeper, maybe 20 ft.). We snorkeled the shallow sections and hookah dove the deeper ones.



The hookah apparatus allows you to stay down as long as you need or want to without worrying about running out of air. You are still breathing compressed air out of a regulator. The regulator is connected to a long hose that is connected to the hookah pump that floats on the surface.

On our first dive my air line got wrapped around the buoy line and I was trying to pull it along with me. At first I thought there was a sudden strong current, and I was kicking really hard to try to keep up with Cindy. Then I realized my air hose was tight, and I tried pulling on it. I was still getting air, but I could not figure out why I was having so much trouble moving forward, and I got a little panicky. Cindy saw what was wrong and was swimming back to release the buoy, when I decided to surface and see what was going on. After that, the diving went smoothly.
I enjoyed seeing the seagrass meadow up close. I like the Amphibolus. There was a lot of little snails attached to the Posedonia. I got to see some of the stiped trumpeters that Cindy is studying and a pair of very large (maybe half a meter) disc shaped fish with a big black stripe. (a bat fish?)

It was a fun day, and a confidence builder for getting in the water here and using the new equipment.