The chance to help sail a yacht from Sydney to the Whitsunday Islands over a few weeks of early winter seemed like a great way to escape from the short days of Tassie's winter. I don't usually mind winter at all, hiking in the snow, clear crisp cold weather. But it was wonderful to be warm and go snorkeling as often as possible. It has been a while since I tried to identify tropical fishes on a coral reef and it took some practice. Each snorkel meant that I came back with my head full of mental notes like, "some sort of butterflyfish with diagonal stripes - black and white; a wrasse with an orange beak-like snout; a bunch of little white guys with yellow quarters on the front." Usually I would forget some salient point that would not allow me to identify very many fish. But after many, many times in the water I had a few named and even fewer memorized. But it was a great distraction and if I can't name them all, at least I have a great appreciation for the diversity! A few illustrations:
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