I was back for a quick spring dip in the bay last week. It’s been a while since I’ve been as the weather has been a bit atrocious of late. The water is getting quite warm now though. Remember, on the home page of Melbourne Snorkelling and Wildlife, you can find useful links for weather and water temperature. We’re up at around 14-15 degrees now. Last year it reached 17 degrees by the end of October.
By the way …. a big thank you to everyone who came along to the Bayside City Under the Sea book launch at Mantecado recently. It was lovely to meet you all. Sorry I didn’t have time to chat longer. It makes me think I should organise a similar get together some time with the sole purpose of meeting everyone, answering questions and sharing some love of the sea.
There has been a lot of weed deposited around the beaches this spring. It’s perfectly normal, it’s just been washed in on the winds and tides. This weed will rot down over the next few weeks and inject essential carbon and nitrogen into the ecosystemHow ecosystems function An ecosystem is a community of lifeforms that interact in such an optimal way that how ecosystems function best, is when all components (including humans and other animals) can persist and live alongside each other for the longest time possible. Ecosystems are fuelled by the energy created by plants (primary producers) that convert the Sun's heat energy More. For now, it does make swimming and searching for critters a little tricky in places.
I did manage to find a few Black-margined Sea Slugs that, along with some other Elysias, seem quite common at the moment. In this image, you can see the simple eye and its rasping jaws munching on filmentous algae. These animals are essential to the process of cleaning up the waste seaweed and bringing the system back into balance before summer.
This coming Sunday currently looks good for another quick spring dip in the Bay. Anywhere in the northern bay should be fine. Sunday the forecast is for light northerly winds all day.
