A Bit of weirdness

Scrounging around in some old papers yesterday I found this somewhat interesting thing. Waaayyy back in 1974 when I was on holidays in Adelaide I happened to be at Port Adelaide. To alleviate the boredom at the time I found a bottle and wrote the note (on the yellow paper, with spellings mistakes included!). A couple of months later I got the following letter, showing the message had been found on the north coast of Kangaroo Island. A distance of around 160 kilometres (100 miles).

















At the time it was interesting enough but didn't seem too significant. Now half a lifetime later and I wonder who Peter was. A quick check of the phone book shows he isn't in the white pages for Warooka, but there is someone else there of the same surname. Also the boat "Para Star" which Peter mentions seems to still be on the maritime register.



The register shows it as a boat built in 1972 and with a home port of Port Adelaide. Maybe I could chase up the current owner, but I think it would be unlikely to be the person who owned it when it was new.

Still, a cause for introspection.

ANZAC Day snorkelling

Stingaree of some sort Urolophus testaceus? the Common Stingaree

A Strong Fish, also known as a Dusky Morwong
Dactylophora nigricans










Yelloweye Mullet Aldrichetta forsteri













A nudibranch. I have no idea what sort as there are too many species.

PS. After writing the blog entry I spent nearly all of one evening on the very informative Sea Slug Forum pages hosted by the Australian Museum and it seems our little friend is the fairly common:
Ceratosoma brevicaudatum

Old Wives at Port Noarlunga

Old Wives (Enoplosus armatus)

A very common fish in South Australia. They can be found in small schools or individually.























Yesterday there were a number of pairs sitting quietly along the bottom edge of the Port Noarlunga reef. This pair were sheltering under an old ship's anchor located on the SCUBA diver's trail at about 4-5m depth at low tide.
I was only snorkeling but I was able to dive down a number of times to get several shots. The fish didn't swim away so I assume they were preoccupied and the pairing has something to do with mating, but there wasn't anything obvious I could see they were doing. These individuals are about 300mm long.
There were several other pairs just out in the open above the sandy floor.








Some Australian creatures are not as innocuous as they might seem. The Old Wife has poisonous dorsal spines which have given a few fishermen painful jabs, but they are perfectly safe to swim with (as far as I know).

The Falke Flies Again

How many people does it take to change a lightbulb?
Not as many as it takes to get the Motor Falke In the air again. Finished the 30 yearly, finished the reweigh, even finished the paperwork. Will it ever fly again?
.














Seems to be OK (so far).




















Back on the ground again and everything works. Kevin seems a lot happier than me, but that's probably because he doesn't want to work on the aircraft anymore.
Whew, just in time for the Air Force Cadets bivouac this week.

Fish

A "Strong Fish" or "Dusky Morwong", Dactylophora nigricans, near the reef at Port Noarlunga

--- Air Show ---

--- more Air Show ---

One more image

Uschi flies a glider

I'm not sure the picture is the right way up here...

Yes, that's better.

On the weekend...

...towing at Adelaide Soaring Club