365 @ 54°30' South: Kelp

Showing posts with label Kelp. Show all posts

Saturday, 7 November 2015

August 26: Crazy kelp

Kelp. Photo: Jacque Comery

August 24: Dried kelp at Bauer Bay

I was picking up marine debris when my eye was drawn to this rock as I thought it was draped in plastic wrap. It was just dried kelp.

Kelp on rocks at Bauer Bay. Photo: Jacque Comery

Kelp on the rocks. Photo: Jacque Comery

Tuesday, 11 August 2015

July 25: Kelp and rocks

Just enjoying the simplicity of colours and shapes of kelp and rocks on the east beach of the isthmus .

Kelp holdfast. Photo: Jacque Comery

Treble clef kelp Photo: Jacque Comery

Kelp in a rockpool at the waters edge flanked by purple algae. Photo: Jacque Comery

Swirling veins in a beach cobble Photo: Jacque Comery

Sunday, 28 June 2015

June 22: Elephant seal dreaming that she is a sea otter

Dreaming in the kelp. Photo: Jacque Comery

Wednesday, 17 June 2015

The kelp that lays around the beach is such an interesting thing. It is so tough and hard you cannot tear it. It feels like thick leather, and I am not the first person to muse how this would go on a sofa (and yes, the conclusion was nice for a day, then not so well as it rots!). If you try and bite it you can easily punch through its tough skin. Inside it has an interesting honeycomb like structure which is also evident in the pattern on the outside of this freshly washed up example.
Where is grows in big mats in the near shore area it attenuates the surf to a great degree, creating calmer pockets especially at low tide for the elephant seals to wallow in, and for the penguins to enter and exit the water without falling all over the place!
Piles of it are tossed up onto the beach by the huge seas that every passing storm brings.
I can only ponder how beautiful these kelp forests must appear from below the surface, and what an amazing habitat it must create for the animals that swim amongst it and shelter in it.

Saturday, 13 June 2015

June 7: Colours and textures in the rain on West Beach of the Isthmus

A rainy Sunday. Too wet to take out my Olympus so I headed out for a walk with my old Lumix Waterproof DMC-FT2. When it is raining on Macca everything is grey. The sky, the ground, the ocean. With my eyes cast down to avoid the horizontal rain, I started to spot all of the little bits of colour the whole way along my walk from the Station to the Razorback at the end of the Isthmus on the west coast, and back along the east coast. The blurry effects are a combination of raindrops and me licking the lens to try and clear it!
With gumboots full of water and soaking wet I returned home after an hour and a half, smiling at how much colour you can find on a grey day, if you look in the right places.