Coming up, Jonathan does a night dive under a jetty in South Australia in search of the
elusive Pajama Squid!
Welcome to Jonathan Bird’s Blue World!
Australia is an awesome place to scuba dive.
But when most people imagine diving in Australia, they think of the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland.
Sure, it’s one of the most famous reef systems in the world, stretching more than 1,000 miles.
And the water is warm.
But there is also great diving down in the colder water of South Australia.
Near Whyalla, there are giant cuttlefish.
And south of Adelaide, Leafy Sea dragons.
And in the tiny town of Edithburgh…a jetty.
But this plain looking jetty is one of the best dives in Australia.
The adventure begins in Adelaide.
The whole family is joining me on a South Australia dive trip.
We begin with a hike in Morialta Conservation Park, just outside Adelaide.
We’re hiking up into the hills to see some waterfalls.
And while I like a good hike now and then…
…I would say that scuba diving is easier…in general.
But the view from the top makes it worth the effort!
And on the way down we find that lovable symbol of Australia, a Koala sleeping in a tree.
But then we pile into the van for a 4 hour drive to Edithburgh.
Edithburgh and its jetty, originally were established to export grain and salt from
the region.
Now this quaint coastal town on the windy Yorke Peninsula is also known for its 55 turbine
wind farm, and fantastic scuba diving!
The dive at the jetty is good anytime, but at night the really cool stuff comes out,
so I’m waiting for sunset.
After dark, local expert divemaster Daniel Kinasz walks me through the dive plan, and
we suit up.
The water is chilly but shallow, so we can stay a long time looking for cool critters,
if we bundle up under our drysuits.
You’ve got to love this.
It’s a beautiful night in South Australia.
The air is calm.
There is no wind.
There are no waves--just perfectly crystal clear water.
I have a feeling this dive is going to be really really good.
In Australia they are so considerate of divers.
They have all these nice jetties, nice place to put your tank to suit up, stairs right
into the water.
It seems like in Australia they appreciate scuba divers more than in other places.
So this is apparently—according to Daniel—one of the best places in the whole world to find
the Pajama Squid.
Now as you know, I love cephalopods and I’ve never seen a Pajama squid, and in fact I’ve
only seen pictures (and that’s how I know what they look like) and they are really cool
so hopefully we’re going to find them.
And with a few final touches, I’m ready to go look for the Pajama squid!
Look at this!
This doesn’t get any easier!
Diving in Australia man!
Steps!
At the bottom of the steps, Daniel and I flop into the 52° F water and submerge.
As I sink down into only 3 meters of water, I immediately start finding stuff.
The bottom is crawling with sea stars.
The Six-armed cushion star.
A curled up 11 arm sea star.
A biscuit star, and a brittle star on the run from my bright lights.
There is a sea urchin with a crown of purple tunicates, and a couple of nudibranchs—basically
snails without a shell.
A smooth anglerfish is waiting patiently for a meal.
The anglerfish is the Australian term for what is known as a frogfish in many places.
Daniel points out the rarely-seen Southern Velvetfish.
This highly camouflaged fish is related to scorpionfish, so it has venomous spines in
its dorsal fin for defense.
It’s a camouflaged ambush predator, waiting patiently for prey to come close.
Nearby in the seaweed, a well-camouflaged Short-headed Seahorse.
It’s a male with a belly full of eggs.
With seahorses, the male carries the eggs in a pouch until they hatch.
This species of seahorse is perfectly adapted to live camouflaged within this seaweed.
A short distance away, another animal with amazing camouflage.
On a finger sponge, a spider crab using algae and seaweed as a disguise.
On the columns of the jetty, a rich collection of colorful sponges, and among them another
spider crab.
Instead of algae, this crab has covered itself in sponges to blend in.
And at the base of one of the columns in the sand, I come across this little guy, smaller
than a golf ball.
Known as a Southern Bobtail squid, it’s part of the family of cephalopods known as
bobtail squid, which are in fact not squids at all.
They are small cuttlefish.
It’s a minor distinction, but that means they have a cuttlebone inside for buoyancy.
Like squid, they can jet around with squirts of water, they can swim with the two fins
on the front of their body, and of course they can crawl around on their arms.
Bobtails have a unique way of hiding from predators.
They burrow into the sand, so that only their eyes are left sticking out.
As I get deeper, working my way out towards the end of the jetty, I come across this amazing
and rare octopus.
The Southern Sand Octopus is only found in the waters of Southern Australia and Tasmania.
It is unique in being one of the few octopods that lacks chromatophores—color-changing
skin cells.
So it has no ability to camouflage itself by adapting its color to its surroundings.
As a result, it only comes out to hunt in the dark.
During the day it would be easy prey for a fish.
This octopus is crawling through the rubble and algae, looking for a crab or shrimp to
eat.
But when it comes time to hunker down for the day, this octopus does something surprising.
Using its siphon, it blows water down into the sand, creating a soupy mixture of sand
in suspension with water, sort of like quicksand.
Then it drops into the quicksand and keeps blowing water, making the hole deeper and
deeper.
While many octopods are known to cover themselves in a thin layer of sand for camouflage, this
is the only species known to actually burrow.
This octopus may dig down as deep as 20 centimeters, using its long thin arms to keep a breathing
hole open to the surface.
I guess this guy has decided I’m not much of a threat.
This is as far as he digs for me tonight.
I must have hit octopus central out here by the end of the jetty.
The Southern Keeled octopus can change colors and tends to be found out on the sand hunting
shrimp.
This one is a bit smaller than my hand and doesn’t seem to be afraid…but rather just
hoping I will go away!
As I turn and make my way back towards shore, I finally find a Pajama squid.
These tiny cephalopods, only the size of a golf ball, get their name from their classic
pajama stripes.
Like the Bobtail squid, it’s actually a cuttlefish.
It hunts shrimp at night, sometimes eating shrimp almost as large as itself.
Many animals in the ocean that have bright coloration like this are advertising that
they are poisonous.
It’s called aposematic coloration.
It turns out that the Pajama squid secretes a slime that many animals find objectionable—a
type of mild poison that helps make this cuttlefish unappetizing.
Sometimes the Pajama squid wants to hide, either to wait for prey or to escape annoying
underwater photographers.
In this case, it can bury itself up to the eyeballs quickly.
As I finally get back to the steps where I started the dive, I can’t believe what I
find in such shallow water: a pair of Bobtail squid mating right under the steps!
Since I have never seen this before, I have no idea how long it will go on, but the male
holds on to the female for the whole process.
Since they are so still, I can get the camera up really close and I can see the chromatophores
in their skin, slightly changing size to create different patterns and colors.
Cephalopods are cool, and this has been a great cephalopod dive!
Finally, after more than 90 minutes filming marine life, it’s time to head up.
Even in the 52° water, I’m not cold.
But I am almost out of air.
Man, that was awesome!
It really was more like a muck dive than it was a dive under a jetty because everything
that was really cool was in the muck or in the sand but…lots of cephalopods, nudibranchs,
sea stars, all kind of great stuff.
I love critters, and any dive with lots of critters is always exciting for me.
The jetty in Edithburgh is by far one of the best critter dives I have ever done in my
life.
It’s hard to believe that so many incredible animals live so close to shore--under a jetty!
Dives like this always remind me why I am so fascinated with the Blue World.
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