I got to do my first dive in South Australia today. Unfortunately the visibility was pretty bad do to a fairly strong swell and therefore there was little chance of finding a leafy sea dragon. It was still quite a fun dive though and I got to see several interesting fish and invertebrates like this old wife:



And this bullseye:


In the evening, I gave talk sponsored by Reef Watch entitled, "In Search of Dragons." I talked a little about the New England Aquarium, our seadragon exhibit, and the efforts that many public aquariums are taking to breed sea dragons in captivity (a very big challenge at this point in time, especially since there are still many holes in our knowledge about seadragons). The talk went well and nearly 40 people attended. The attendees were a good mix of local divers interested in seadragons to local marine biologists who were quite knowledgeable about sea dragons.



Tomorrow I'm off to do a dive at a place that is a pretty reliable leafy seadragon site (fingers crossed). Then I'm off to spend the weekend diving in search of leafy sea dragons and some other unique syngnathids that are native to South Australia.

Cheers,
Jeremy