Located only two hours south of Brisbane, Byron Bay is a great place for a weekend escape, or a week long dive holiday. In August I headed down for a few dives with Sundive. I was hoping to photograph the grey nurse sharks, which are seen around Julian Rocks from May to November each year.
The weather was perfect for winter diving, sunshine and no wind. Sundive have an efficient set-up with the dive boat departing daily from the shop. After loading the gear it was into the back of the 4WD for the quick trip down to the beach.
Launching the dive boat at The Pass is always interesting, especially if there is a bit of a swell, but today there was hardly a ripple in the bay.
We were soon heading out to Julian Rocks Marine Reserve, only a five minute ride in these smooth conditions. I was buddied up with another Nigel and Phil Buckland, one of Sundive’s guides. Phil has been diving Byron Bay for thirty years and keeps a list of all the species he has seen here during that time (visit www.julianrocks.net for details). Phil has seen some amazing things at Byron Bay over the years, including species that are not suppose to be found here.
We descended into The Nursery, a shallow coral garden on the western side of Julian Rocks packed with hard corals, and then slowly made our way towards the famous Cod Hole. The visibility was 10m, while the water was a chilly 18C.
Slowly drifting across the hard corals we soon spotted nudibranchs, morwongs, angelfish, goatfish, scorpionfish, anemonefish, sweetlips, gobies, wrasse, sea stars, feathe
rstars
and the ever-present spotted and ornate wobbegongs.Blue gropers are very common here and entertaining to watch, with several males and a harem of smaller females following us around. I even found one big male resting in a gully getting serviced by cleaner wrasse. It was enjoying the cleaning so much that it was unconcerned about me taking photos only centimetres from its nose.
As we got closer to Cod Hole we encountered several groups of old wives. These striking fish are rarely seen in Queensland waters, but here they were in large numbers just south of the border.
On the lookout for grey nurse we skirted around Cod Hole to explore the gutters in front of this swim-thru. No grey nurse to be seen today, but we did find a few estuary gropers, a small green turtle and a cuttlefish. Under one ledge Phil found several crayfish and two clumps of cuttlefish eggs.
Once around the corner onto the eastern side of Julian Rocks the visibility improved to 15m, allowing us to spot a lone grey nurse shark. This 2.5m long male was quite shy and stayed on the edge of the visibility before moving into deep water.
We then headed towards Cray Cave, a lovely swim-thru in 22m, which was full of red morwong. We just started to ascend when a large Queensland groper swam into view and disappear into the Cray Cave. This was just a lovely Byron Bay dive.
Back on the boat Dave, another Sundive guide, casually asked if anyone else had seen the Red Indianfish. What! A Red Indianfish at Byron Bay!
Phil, with thirty years of diving Byron Bay, had never seen one, and the only one I had ever seen was off Sydney twenty years ago. These bizarre looking fish are very rare, and most often seen in Jervis Bay, 900km south.
For the next dive I had one goal, to find and photograph this Red Indianfish. In this quest I was joined by fellow photographer John Natoli and his buddy Mark. Phil had to lead another group of divers, but was hoping to find the Red Indianfish at the end of his dive as Dave had informed us it was right next to the Cray Cave.
A quick tank fill, gear reloaded on the boat and we were soon back at Julian Rocks. Now Red Indianfish are slow swimmers and ambush predators, meaning they don’t move around much, so we were pretty hopefully we could relocate this fish.
Aaron, the skipper, dropped us right over Cray Cave, giving us the maximum amount of bottom time to find the Red Indianfish. As we reached the bottom we landed right next to two grey nurse sharks hovering in a gutter. I managed to get two photos, but the sharks were being very shy today and disappeared down the gutter. No matter we had a Red Indianfish to find.
I had a quick look in Cray Cave, only to see the monster Queensland groper again. It didn’t hang around for long, leaving with its escort of yellowtail and remora. Once passed the cave we started to search the bottom closely as this was the spot that Dave saw the fish.
For five minutes we closely scanned every orange coloured sponge, as Red Indianfish look remarkable like a sponge. I was beginning to think that Dave had told us the wrong spot when John cried out and started waving. Mark and I swam over to see him pointing at a very beautiful Red Indianfish.
The fish was 20cm long and wrapped around a grey cup sponge, which fortunately made it quite conspicuous. John took a series of photos and then let me have a turn.
As I photographed this strange fish I closely studied its unusual form. Red Indianfish have a blunt face, a long tapered body and a very promenate dorsal fin that runs the length of its body. The species was named because the dorsal fin makes it look like it’s wearing a Native American Chiefs feathered head-dress, and it also happens to be red in colour.
Red Indianfish are endemic to Australia, a member of the very small prowfish family, and found from Southern Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia and Southern Western Australia. They are not often seen by divers, as they are rare and very well camouflaged.
For ten minutes John and I took turns photographing this fascinating fish, with poor Mark having to wait in the background. We then left the fish in peace and continued down the eastern side of Julian Rocks to Hugo’s Trench.
Back on the boat we were not the only ones buzzing as nearly everyone had seen the Red Indianfish.
The next day the diving was also great. I saw turtles, wobbegongs, moray eels, slipper cray, crayfish, kingfish, gropers, batfish, nudibranchs and even a baby ornate wobbegong. But the highlight was again returning to find the Red Indianfish for just a few more photos of this exotic little fish.