In February 2016 I dived the mouth of the Derwent estuary Hobart with Steve De Villiers, one of the owners of Go Dive Hobart, a friendly and very helpful dive centre. I had travelled to Hobart hoping to see Spotted Handfish. This small endangered species, endemic to the Derwent is slow-moving and appears to walk on its pectoral and pelvic fins. Common throughout the lower Derwent estuary up to the mid 1980s, the Handfish have since suffered a serious fall in population numbers. Apparently only a handful of them can now be found but nevertheless it did not us long to find one off Nutgrove Beach and after a short while this Handfish was joined by a second.
For a second dive, Steve and I travelled a short distance to Blackmans Bay where the water was clearer and the marine life quite different, my favourite of which was Common Gurnard Perch.