Yesterday, we had another memorable swim in the lagoon. As I am currently in recuperation mode, swimming is more about mental health and not so much about fitness. That means if we see something cool, we need not feel guilty about stopping to watch it. Consequently, my GPS swim tracker recorded a very interesting route.
First, we met one of our old favourites. Buried under the sand, he is easy to miss…. Mr Flathead. All that was visible on our first pass was his eyes. He was one of the creatures I wrote about in the post ‘Eyes of Yallingup Lagoon’ a few years back (https://thetravelbee.blog/2022/10/13/the-eyes-of-yallingup-lagoon-wa/). On our second pass he had moved across the sand and was visible in his entirety. Such an interesting looking fish.
But sorry Mr Flathead, you were not the most interesting fish of the day. That is because we discovered something we had never seen in the lagoon before, a Dusky Morwong. Now, we had been told this fish was about, and that he is one of the biggest fish seen in the lagoon. But alas, we had no camera ( you never have it when you need it).
What I loved about this guy, aside from his shimmering silver body and yellow tipped fins, was his entourage. There were four smaller fish following him as he cruised about. When we came along, we couldn’t help but follow him (hence the GPS route). He started to swim faster darting through crevices and weed. Both my friend and I were grinning as we tried to keep up and so did his little fish. One in particular was momentarily left behind. He was a Painted Rainbow Wrasse and the odd one out, the others were maybe …. Bream? It took some effort for him to catch up again, but he did and carried on escorting his giant friend.
The best thing about the lagoon is you never know what you might see. I got the giggles when I saw another Wrasse intently pecking at something under a rock, sand spraying out in all directions. I’m not sure what he was after but he was certainly determined. We also saw a small Cobbler briefly before he disappeared under a rock in a flash.
What we did not see, was the 1.5m Bronze Whaler that was spotted in the lagoon the day before. One has to wonder which of my friends he was looking for…..
A fun and memorable day in my happy place.
TTB
The Travel Bee 