Manly is a suburb of Sydney, at the northern end of the harbour. Apparently it’s named that because when Captain Cook sailed past, the people he saw on the beach looked particularly manly. They still are.
Manly has a gorgeous surf beach, but also (supposedly) some pretty decent diving. Sadly, I picked a day when conditions really weren’t at their best. The first dive was in between 1 and 3 metres visibility. We were hunting for Weedy Sea Dragons, but the bit of the bay they like had the worst visibility so we didn’t try for long. Instead we had a nice tour of the area, saw some fringed wobegon sharks (that’s the front end of one in the picture), a rather shy octopus and two huge schools of fish. At one point we were all in our own little holes in the fish school, with all of them swirling around us. Very nice, but the pictures don’t do it justice.
The second dive was more of the same. Worse visibility meant the pictures are barely worth showing. On the other hand, it was 31 degrees and sunny. If you’re wondering where the English summer is, it’s enjoying a fine winter in Australia!
They (middle pic) look like some kind of cat fish? I can remember catching one like these with my Dad near to Brisbane, age 7! 🙂
… you couldn’t see the weedy sea dragons because they were more weedy (scared) than dragon like.
Australians are good at naming things!
Did you catch one?
They are juvenile catfish, apparently. Was it tasty?
Sorry, can’t remember what it tasted like. 🙁 But I can remember we BBQ’d it on the terrace overlooking a sugar cane plantation. 🙂