Saturday, 19 May 2012

First Barrier, First photos

The weather today was sunny but a bit breezy. I had arranged to meet up with Penny at Churchill Barrier 1 so that I could try out my new underwater camera setup, a Canon Ixus 115HS with waterproof housing.

As the wind was making the East side of the barrier a bit choppy we decided to go in on the West side where the water was fairly calm.

I think the couple that were sat in their car in the lay-by where we were getting kitted up must have thought what a couple of nutters we were!!

Soon we were ready to enter the water and get snapping.

Looking South along the West side of Churchill Barrier 1

We spent about an hour working our way along the blocks of the barriers. I couple of times I lost sight of Penny as she kept disappearing into the various nooks and crannies.

The visibility away from the barrier was quite murky, there seemed to be lots of things drifting in the water.

Penny scanning the murk to see if she could find anything
 It wasn't long before Penny spotted something drifting in the water.

A small macropodia
There were also some Starfish, a few small jellyfish and various anenomes.

Starfish

This jelly fish was about the size of a 2p coin
Anenomes
A lot of the blocks were covered in limpets and barnacles.

Limpets and the circular marks showing where they have been
Barnacles
If you look closelydown the right hand edge of the rock you can see the tiny feelers of the Barnacles as they feed.

There were also a large variety of plants.






You can see the metal loop of the concrete block in amongst the plants. This loop was used to lift the block into position.


 
Bootlace Weed
If you look closely near the middle left of the picture you can see a white patch on the frond of the weed.


Here's a close up of it. Not sure what it is (yet).

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