Environment and climate change

The oceans of the anthropocene

Feeling homesick even though you’re already at home

Draughtboard shark, by Peter Southwood, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Diving in Tasmania

The weather was good yesterday, so I went for a dive off my local beach.

We’re still in the Derwent estuary here, and the visibility varies from reasonable to pretty poor.

On Saturday, it was a bit murky. There’s plenty of life down there, though.

I saw a couple of adult draughtboard sharks cruising the weeds. These beautiful creatures have a kind of mottled camo pattern on their skin and incredible metallic copper-coloured eyes. They can grow to 1.5 m, but the ones I see are usually around 1 m or maybe a little less. They’re bottom-dwelling and harmless.

And they’re quite curious, not like the big wrasse that dart for cover as I approach, or the shy crayfish lurking beneath their overhangs.

Smooth stingray by Alpha from Melbourne, Australia, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

I saw a biggish smooth stingray, around 1 metre across, and it was definitely not shy, to the point where I started to feel uncomfortable, watching its whiplike tail beneath me with thoughts of…