O is for Ocean and things in it

 

ocean beyond trees with ship on horizon
Having been in Minnesota for the last 3 decades, the ocean is a lovely change. I do now have a fascination with frieghters and container ships. We stopped in a park on the way to Swansea. We started down the road to the beach but it was traveled by big trucks and we found a side trail. On the side trail,  one of the signs said "direct to beach" while the other was a loop trail. We did the loop trail and then thought we should check out the beach while there. We trudged up a very sandy and moderately steep incline (eg lots of work), crested the hill to see a large expanse of sand without clear signage. We trudged more and found a sign. This one said "outlook" left and "beach" right. Beach was still a vague concept with another sandy hill. We tried outlook. We didn't find it but did get high enough to take this shot. Note the lack of a nearby beach! Enough workout, we reversed course. 

arrow pointing to dark shape in ocean
Scott spotted the shark from one of our whale watching areas. It really is a shark. My lovely son refused to believe his poor mother. 

anemone under rock in water

tide pool with crab in it
If we follow the path across from the house in Potato Point, you can explore tide pools (do need to watch for incoming tides). Most of those pictures don't bear justice to the real thing but the anemone and small crab were cute. 

several seals playing in ocean
When there are no whales out breaching, we can still count on the seals. We have found them playing in this area for many many years. Seems like shark activity is rare.

Finally, Bermagui (south of Cobargo and Potato Point) has a Blue Pool. This is a walled in bit of ocean that is supposed to be sans sharks. After our offer was accepted on the house, we went for a swim. As Kristy said, it is called blue because of the color of your skin when you get in. It was achingly cold but really cool. The bottom is ocean floor and a couple (with wet suit and snorkels) found a moray eel in it. There was a young whale on the other side of the wall. I missed most of him (changing into swimsuit) but Scott said you could see into his blow hole and you could easily here him.
Asking for a wet suit for Christmas, I think!
women in pool with ocean behind the pool

The blue pool isn't too far from our new digs (title transfer Dec 18) so should get some more opportunities to explore. 

While in Sydney, we took the ferry over to Manly, wandered the beach and had lunch. The "southern calamari squid" was floating in the debris near the ferry station (not for lunch). We saw about six of them, two seemed to be making baby squid.
small squid floating in water

We also saw surf school and float school - not a bad day out for the school kids!
people in shallow water learning to surf
kids and teachers on beach

Adding the requisite selfie of us and Harbor bridge (the opera house is on the other side), taken from the ferry.
erin and scott with harbor bridge in background

Just to prove a point - you can buy budgy/budgie smugglers here. Luckily only a few these smaller swimsuits were actually seen on humans!
storefront labeled budgy smuggler, lots of construction gear in front of it





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