Lockdown extended: Send Nudis!

I’m sure you’ve all heard, the lockdown in the Greater Sydney region has been extended by another week… at least. Considering today’s numbers, I’m not 100% convinced it will end next Friday. And so we do what we need to do which is stay home most of the time and head out for some exercise and outdoor recreation every single day, lest we break. That and bake granola and drink wine.

I spent the first week just walking, by the beach, which is good for the soul and good for the bum and thighs if you make it down onto the sand but bad for the self esteem if you end up behind one of the gorgeous locals who clearly walks waaayy more often than you do! And so after a week and a bit of this I ended up walking a bit further along, near my favourite rock pooling spot so that I could spend some time peering down into the pools and under the rocks contained within. And because I am the luckiest (and most persistent) girl in the world I was rewarded with nudis for days!

Now, Nudibranchs really fascinate me. Most of them are pretty teeny, only a few millimetres in length and can be super colourful. For someone who has tried diving just the one time and spent those last seconds as they deflate your buoyancy vest and your weight belt takes you down underneath the surface, literally clutching at the air, it’s like having access to a piece of the ocean that would normally be hidden from babies like myself.

Plus they are hermaphrodites which is damn interesting in itself. When you think about it, it makes sense to have both male and female reproductive organs when you think about it. Most of the nudis (and Sea Slugs) are small and slow and the ocean is a big place. Much easier to just pull up next to a potential mate and both fertilise each other so that you can both go and lay eggs, rather than wait around for a nice guy with a good job and who treats you right 😉

I was particularly excited when I turned over the most unlikely looking small flat rock, in the most unlikely looking rock pool, super small and with no real algae or weed growing in it, and found this GORGEOUS Nudibranch, a Spurilla braziliana near an egg mass! My eyesight is pretty rubbish at the moment, so the turning over of rocks involves a bit of a process where I lift the rock to my face, drop down my prescription sunglasses, wait for my eyes to focus, gasp loudly at my find, before plunging it back into the water. When you pull up a rock with one of these nudis on board, they kind of come up looking like a piece of bubble covered jelly, smooshed up together and kind of just wet and mushy looking. It’s not until the rock is back in the water, placed gently and exactly where it was found, that the nudi ‘unfurls’ and you can see just how lovely it is.

I’ve got to say, I’ve really loved my nudibranch filled mornings. They’ve really kept me feeling okay about the whole lockdown, as they go about their tiny lives, making more tiny nudibranchs and just being damn beautiful. Got to feel for my poor husband though, at home, working and receiving a text from me warning that there were plenty of nudes on the way! Imagine his little face waiting for the pictures to come through 😂 Honestly, these nudes are much prettier than any I could come up with myself that’s for sure!

Nudibranchs – Northern Illawarra