A few weeks back, we made our sec­ond annual migra­tion to Whyalla, to visit the puppy dogs of the sea, the Giant Aus­tralian cut­tle­fish. This time out, we jumped on a bus with the group from Elite Dive Acad­emy and made our way (slowly) to the red city.It was a long bus ride (over 5 hours), but with such a great group of peo­ple, it was a fan­tas­tic trip.

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At this time of year, the water is absolutely frigid — 12°C accord­ing to the dive com­puter. We rugged up in our wet­suits & ther­mals (and dry­suits for those lucky rich peo­ple!) and braved the shal­lows near Blacks Point.

Its not hard to see a cut­tle­fish at this time of year — there’s pretty much noth­ing other than cut­tle­fish in the water. There are lots of sea urchins too, but they’re not very interesting.

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Sep­a­rat­ing after a brief courtship
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A large male cut­tle­fish dwarfs the smaller female

The colour dis­plays that the cut­tle­fish put on are out of this world. The colours and pat­terns cycle through their bod­ies and are really mesmerising.

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The Mat­ing Dance

This male is try­ing to woo the lady with his manly charms.

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Get­ting Frisky

There’s quite a few of the lit­tle fel­las here, all try­ing to get a piece of the action.

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Colour Cycling

This video shows the colour cycling in a bit more detail.

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Jul 28, 2008