Clifton Gardens 23rd December 2007

Dive No. 286 1.27 pm, 21 degrees, 53 mins, 8.8 max, 5.8 av
Liz and I were expecting a double boat dive today but the boat didn’t turn up to pick us up at Clifton Gardens so, after waiting for over 2 hours, we decided to go in for a dive anyway. Unfortunately, the tide was out a fair bit by then so buoyancy was a bit of an issue. There are many interesting critters under the jetties at Clifton and today we saw some huge pufferfish, a seahorse, a decorator crab, large mosaic, pygmy and fan-bellied leatherjackets, large red morwongs, schools of surgeon fish and tarwhine, silver drummer, mado, hula, etc. plus a lovely, tropical-coloured fish (above left) which I haven't fully identified (maybe a juvenile leatherjacket, but which genus?