Weekend of relaxation, beach walks, diving, surfing and reef life collecting at Stradbroke island.

Five of us went to straddie to stay for a few days and had wonderful conditions!
The vis wasn’t great but still 6 to 10 metres wasn’t real bad, the water temp was around 24c and sunny for the whole time we were there then rain as we got home, good timing!
I have been doing this here most years since the mid 80s and love it and I am sure Debbie, Danny, Julie and Simon all had a ball as well.
There was collecting, surfing, fishing, beach walks and pretty much all that straddie offers, oh and a sea food lunch at the pub, lol.

Sunrise on the way there


Sunset the same day


Sunrise second day


sunset


Jetty sunset


Sunrise third morning


The second best beach in SEQ that is near the surf club.


Trees on beach side cliff


Rock wall colours near the surf club





My other half coming from the second best beach in SEQ with the cliffs along side.


The wife waiting for us as we enjoy a free dive.


A dolphin at Amity jetty, its a regular!




Night dive pics
torch beam


flat head face.


Goat fish


Trigger/file fish


Stingray



A bit of weed on surface in some spots, still clear enough though.


A common synaptula recta face.


Stone fish face, they are very common here.


Scorpion fish pics




small zebra lion


medium zebra lion


Hand/fingers shaped sponge


Slug looking sponge


Cushion sea star pics






Crabs mating


A nice shell on one of the beach walks.


A pretty cowrie shell


Some of straddies corals




























One of thousands of copperband


Cone shell fish, heaps here.


Clown fish up close.


Cleaner wrasse eating Sargent major eggs


A small cave


Pink cardinal


Calcium tubed worms


Black and white humbug


Bubble anems




Blue damsel face.



Bi colour angels, heaps this season!




Bat fish up close, certainly not camera shy this one!


Arch way


Anem shrimp




Coral beauty


Clown and anem


Deco crab


Deco urchins


Urchins




A few tube worms of thousands.








Thistle corals a plenty here.


Sweet lip


Semi,qute a few seen.


Puffer/toby pair


Bi colour puller


Rainfordi chaetodon, endemic auzy


Sponge and little legs hanging out.


Moses perch in line


Small painted cray of many seen.


Pretty orange shell




Ocy pics










Local nudi


Hermit close up


Hermit



Green mantis face


Leather coral


Penus looking juv leather coral.


Large green leather


Large bubble anem, this one as been at this spot for over three years now.


Harptail blennies




A medium sized harlequin tusk fish


Feather sea star


Dragonet


Eel pair
]

Cucumber pics






Its butt


Sea squirt


Tube anem


Clowns in old anem


beach walk
shell fish lines










beach walk





















Tiny wave near bar as we walked along.










Low tide algae


Open ocean hair algae, lol


Red algae


Endemic butterfly Rainfordi


Local nudibranch






















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Awesome pics as usual guys, think I'm gonna have to check Straddie out, where do you leave from to get over there??
Cheers
Farmer

Farmer141 wrote:Awesome pics as usual guys, think I'm gonna have to check Straddie out, where do you leave from to get over there??
Cheers
Farmer

You go via the car ferry or in your own boat, the first pic”sunrise” is when we were waiting at the ferry terminal.
Just be aware that straddie is in the marine park and Q fisheries rules dictate that the nets mesh is not to be any smaller then 25 stretched and the locals have a group that is trying to stop collecting’ spearing and some fishing and commercial guys and there are few I am told that are none commercial as well but still selling stuff and all do not want you there!
There is a lot of noise made of anything happening there!!
If you do collect “be paranoid” and i mean real paranoid at hiding what you are doing! It doesn’t matter that you are collecting something legally, there is the research group at Dunwich as well and marine parks will cruise ever so quietly to try and catch you doing what ever due to locals, local pro fishers and holiday makers there and more raving on about absolute crap and it will be directed at you if any one sees that you might be catching “nemo”??? or taking what they want or doing what they are to scared to do or didn’t think of or can’t afford it.
Then the commercial guys and others hit it and nothing is left and you will get blamed.
I am not kidding mate and the south port sea way is the same more or less and I have been going to straddie for over 30 years and the sea way the season after it opened and I have seen it all and not all of it is good!
With these sort of places never say “when” you are going or “when” you went!
Please do not learn the hard way or it will reflect on others coming later on.
In time, all of the Straddie and Moreton areas will be a green zones, don’t give the law makers excuses to make it happen even quicker.
You know cook island, we use to love collecting there and got on well with NSW fisheries even helped them once catch and idiot, any way some idiot commercial fisho caught heaps of wobbies and the moron cleaned them there at the island before leaving, divers saw this and the shit hit the fan and a fisheries officer we knew came out one day while we were there, you have to pre worn of where you intend to collect so he knew we would be there and came out while we were having a cuppa and said what had happened and the island will be closed in two weeks.

Tks for the advice Liquid, If I was going that far up the coast I would probably be more interested in looking rather then collecting.
We have the same problem down here at Hastings Point. The locals are always having a look at what others are doing and having
a winge.
cheers
Farmer

No worries mate, keep up the collecting and put up some pics of that and more, don’t stop that, after all this is a collecting, diving, reef keeping zone/forum, lol.
Personally I think some well placed green zones are imperative and a few no anchoring spots, but Cook island is not a breeding zone for much of anything really, too shallow!! its just nonsensical uneducated human sheep that make most of the noise on these issues. Nine mile a ways out from that spot would be far more valuable to the over all scheme of things.
While we as reefers/recreational collectors take what we need from none major reefs of which produce the planktonic life sized marine life to be spread all over to grow and populate and try to not interfere with the habitat and be sensible, we over all equate to less then zero point zero of one hundredth of a tenth of a percent, maybe less, lol.  
Some part of society has got to take the fall for what societies waist and out put is ruining, just once the marine habitat is in such bad order while still untouched in the coming years, who are they going to blame then?