Yesterday I went snorkeling at Clovelly. Sydneysiders know Clovelly as the home of the beautiful blue groper: an enormous vibrant blue fish. Because of the beautiful protected marine life, Clovelly is an excellent snorkeling location and yesterday I was lucky enough to swim with the groper! We took an underwater camera and documented our day. I just HAD to share a couple of pics with you!
The beautiful blue groper who lives at Clovelly.
Meeting the groper at the bottom of the sea!
You get some idea there of how big he is! It was such an amazing sight!
Researching Bluey, I discovered that “[a]ll gropers are born female, with a grey-brown colouring, and some turn into bright blue males as they age.” He just gets more incredible all the time! We saw a lot of smaller grey-brown gropers, so it looks like there will be plenty in years to come. I know I’ll be going back regularly to check.
regainingparadise 
January 24, 2009 at 3:07 pm |
What an amazing experience that must have been! Great pictures, too!
January 24, 2009 at 4:42 pm |
Glad you enjoy them, Kim! He’s a very pretty fish. He meets your gaze too which is quite funny. He doesn’t really swim away. Just looks at you looking at him. He did chase and bite a guy who patted him though. An appropriate response, I think!
January 24, 2009 at 5:03 pm |
What fun!
January 25, 2009 at 12:58 am |
Wow! How fabulous is that. It really is big. Love the color. It must have been a great experience to come upon him…
January 25, 2009 at 8:24 am |
Sure was! We were very excited. There was a lot of very expressive underwater exclamations – which is very hard to do with a snorkel in your mouth – and much enlivened gesturing. ‘Twas great!
February 1, 2009 at 3:33 am |
I’m officially jealous.
Unless there were sharks around.
February 1, 2009 at 5:08 pm |
No sharks here. It was all very safe. Though I did go snorkelling around the headland at Gordon Bay a few days later and saw a whole minefield of sting rays!!! That was a bit scary. They didn’t bother us though and we did keep our distance. There have been quite a lot of sharks around Sydney lately. Luckily I haven’t seen any. 🙂
March 31, 2009 at 9:47 am |
clovelly is totally awesome 🙂 🙂