I was in town and decided to have a quick look at Eastern Beach to see if any marine life was visible from the shore.
Unfortunately, a heavy burst of rain hit while I was exploring. I had to hide undercover for about 50 minutes while it bucketed down. The rain eventually passed and I started exploring Fishermans Pier.
Fishermans Pier is the name we call a small marina next to the larger harbour area. It is actually the name of the restaurant on the side of the area. There is this floating pontoon next to the area where the hellcopter leaves from. This area is mostly blocked off, but wasn’t during large parts of the pandemic. We were able to walk along the pontoon and see some awesome marine life.
We haven’t been However, there was a sort pier(?) next to the pontoon. I lied down on that, got a couple of photos and, alas, my camera died.
It turns out that having a certain feature turned on in the Olympus TG 6 will cause the battery to drain, even when the camera is switched off.
The photos I got confirmed that B. Diegensis was at Eastern Beach. Not only that, these photos clearly showed various features that would help others be able to identify it.
The below is likely to be a Distaplia species, which is a type of ascidian. I’m glad I asked for help identifying this one as I would have assumed it was yet another Botryllus schlosseri variation.
I’ve returned to this location twice to try and get better photos and haven’t had any luck. The water had oil slicks on the top and it was hard to see in the water. I’m guessing that I was only able to get a good look at these due to the rain.
It did cause me to go back and look at other photos. It’s possible that I observed B. Diegensis here in 2021. I’ll be keeping an eye out for more potential colonies.