High On Ocean

28/05/2026

🌊🎨 FINAL CALL FOR ARTISTS! 🎨🌊

There’s only one week left to enter the First Annual World Ocean Day Poster Competition.

From coral reefs and sea turtles to whales and seahorses, the ocean is full of stories worth protecting. This is an opportunity to use creativity as a tool for environmental impact and help spark conversations around the future of our seas.

Submissions are due June 1, and winners will be announced June 8.

Submit your poster at www.worldoceanday.org/poster

The ocean connects us all. Let your art speak for it.

29/04/2026

New podcast episode has dropped!

If you want to know what Spider Crab Watch is all about, or you want to catch up with the latest news, have a listen.

Thank you to the Citizen Science Show team for having me. It’s always a pleasure to talk about what makes the Great Southern Reef so special, including spider crabs. I love sharing how fascinating they are, how much we still have to learn, and how people can help build that knowledge by logging observations on iNaturalist.

The Enigma of the Great Spider Crab with Elodie Camprasse.

Australia’s great spider crab is hard to miss. With a leg span reaching up to a metre, these arthropods gather in extraordinary numbers along the seafloor. Each winter, tens of thousands converge in Port Phillip Bay in a phenomenon that has featured in global documentaries.

Yet, as Elodie Camprasse discovered, scientific understanding of the species is surprisingly thin.

“We know almost nothing about these crabs,” she explains.

What researchers do know is tied to a vulnerable moment in the crab’s life cycle. Like all arthropods, spider crabs must shed their hard shells to grow. During this moulting phase, they are soft and exposed—easy targets for predators.

The mass gatherings are believed to offer safety in numbers. Beyond that, much remains uncertain: How often do they moult?Where do they come from? Why do they choose specific locations?

Listen to this podcast episode for free wherever you get your podcasts.
https://shows.acast.com/citizen-science-show/episodes/161-the-enigma-of-the-great-spider-crab-with-elodie-camprass

08/04/2026

Did you know April is ?

I am really pleased to see some of the research I’ve been leading with a team at Deakin University featured in The Conversation Australia + NZ 👉 https://lnkd.in/gPTSu6rq

One of the things I love about citizen science is how it blurs the line between “researcher” and “participant” — opening up science to anyone with curiosity (and often just a smartphone or camera).

This article showcases a few ways people can get involved and why that participation genuinely matters for advancing research.

I am grateful to Miki Perkins for including our research in this feature.

06/04/2026

It's that time of year again!
If you've been in the water this long weekend (lucky you, I am jealous!) and you've photographed sea slugs, make sure you share your observations on iNaturalist.
And if not, make use of the next 6 days to go look for our little friends and report back.

05/04/2026

I’m so excited to be stepping onto the TEDx Cecil Street stage on the 30th May to talk about two things I care deeply about: the Great Southern Reef and the power of citizen science 🌊

Tickets are being released in just 3 days (at 9am on April 8th), and if last year is anything to go by, they will go fast — they sold out in around 30 minutes.
They’ll be released first to newsletter subscribers, so if you’re keen to come along, make sure you’re signed up and keep an eye on your inbox (and spam folder!):
tedxcecilstreet.safechkout.net/vip
Would love to see some familiar faces in the audience — it’s going to be a brilliant event.

The event brings together an incredible and diverse lineup of speakers exploring everything from:
• the intersection of ancient and emerging technologies
• moving from daily survival to genuine thriving
• forensic psychology and criminology
• women’s wellbeing, social health, and human connection
• emotional wellbeing and modern ritual
• building and scaling health and wellness ventures
• AI, human behaviour, and leadership
• self-belief and the “not enough” mindset
• scam awareness and financial confidence
• music, storytelling, and creative expression
• and cutting-edge cardiovascular health and research.

25/03/2026

Meet our very own Seaster Sandy Webb (pictured on the right, with her friend Carol) is an absolute marine legend! The short film 'The Kelp Collector' (by Lacelid Productions, directed by Jack Breedon) is a beautiful and heartfelt documentary, following Sandy on her dives in Port Philip Bay, and showing her stunning collection of pressed seaweeds. After decades dedicated to a career in science, Sandy has found a new passion in collecting and cataloguing the diverse algae species that inhabit the waters of Port Phillip Bay.
This stunning documentary has been featured at this year's Ocean Film Festival. You can watch it here: https://youtu.be/TNuvXs3rLpg?si=5rHwucl40pLqKZ3E

15/03/2026

What if I told you that one of the world’s most unusual reefs lies just a short drive from Melbourne?

Our third and final dive of the VSAG Labour Day long weekend took us somewhere quite special: the bryozoan reefs of the Eastern Arm in Western Port.

Very few people realise that we have such an unusual ecosystem right on our doorstep! These ecosystems are not rocky reefs, and they are not coral reefs — they are bryozoan reefs. In fact, Western Port hosts several of them, and they are considered globally significant.

In a previous role I had worked with Drs Travis Dutka (La Trobe University) and Adrian Flynn (Fathom Pacific) who described these habitats in the Eastern Arm back in 2022. Later, I worked with them to document the bryozoan habitats in the North and Western Arms of Western Port, which look quite different. Until now, though, I had only ever seen these environments through ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) and GoPro footage. I had never actually dived on either of these reefs, so I was thrilled when the opportunity came up with VSAG.

The dive itself was a little spooky; visibility was poor and the landscape felt otherworldly, but it was absolutely worth it. The reefs are dominated by two bryozoans: the delicate cream-coloured “white lace coral”, forming intricate, wavy sheets, and the less abundant but more robust “orange plate bryozoan”.

Among the bryozoan structures we found a range of life: several sea star species, doughboy scallops, a sea spider, a sea slug, pencil sea urchins, and plenty of colourful sponges and ascidians tucked among the colonies.

Anyone diving these reefs should be extremely mindful of their buoyancy and avoid anchoring. These habitats are fragile, ancient, and likely recover very slowly from disturbance — if they recover at all.

You can see examples of the diversity of life we found here: https://shorturl.at/cLTSQ

13/03/2026

Last Saturday, as part of the VSAG Labour Day long weekend, a few of us dived at San Remo.

That dive had been on my list for a while. I also knew the conditions there can be challenging, so I was keen not to attempt it without a buddy experienced in reading the site and timing the dive properly. A big thank you to Peter Mosse, who explained how to make the most of the site and guided us in the water.

It turned out to be a great—albeit short—dive. Beyond the jetty, the marine life is fantastic. There’s a beautiful sponge garden and a drop-off toward the channel, and I loved the diversity of sponges and ascidians, along with a few sea slugs and fishes. We even found a Māori octopus tucked inside a tyre under the jetty.

I’ve uploaded a few observations to iNaturalist if you’re interested: https://shorturl.at/Iefrz

Stay tuned for photos and observations from our last dive… that one was really special!

11/03/2026

Last weekend brought some rare dive opportunities in Western Port, with visits to sites that are only seldom explored. Despite challenging conditions — currents and limited visibility — the VSAG crew and I had a great time.

Marine life at Crawfish Rock (and the two other sites some of us visited) was strikingly different from what we’re used to in Port Phillip, shaped by those very conditions. The diversity of sponges and ascidians was particularly impressive. There was something eerie about the dives, but that only added to the sense of it being a truly special experience.

I’ve uploaded a few observations to iNaturalist if you’re interested: https://shorturl.at/CAIN8. And here are some photos for your viewing pleasure.

Stay tuned for photos and observations from our other dives!

16/02/2026

I’ve had to keep this a secret for weeks… but I can finally share it.

I’ll be stepping onto the TEDxCecilStreet stage as one of this year’s speakers on the 30th May.

The theme is “The Heart Of It.” It explores our physical heart, our emotional heart, and the core of ideas that truly matter.

For me, the heart of it has always been the ocean.

I’ll be speaking about my greatest passion — marine life — and about a remarkable but often overlooked ecosystem: Australia's Great Southern Reef.

One of my aims is to empower people to contribute to its understanding through citizen science.

My talk will explore how small acts of curiosity — a single photo, a shared observation — can help build the knowledge needed to better understand and care for our marine environments.

I’m deeply grateful for the opportunity to bring the Great Southern Reef's marine life to the TEDx stage alongside such an inspiring group of speakers. My thanks go out to TEDxCecilStreet's co-curators Julie Parker and Johanna Parker for their trust in me and their guidance. I’m also deeply grateful to my speaking coach, the amazing Trang Nova, for encouraging me to apply and supporting me through the application process — and to my partner, Matthias Klapperstueck, for his patience and thoughtful feedback as I developed the draft.

The event will take place on Saturday, 30th May in Port Melbourne. Tickets will be released soon and are expected to sell quickly. If you're in Melbourne and you’d like to be notified when they go live, you can register here: https://shorturl.at/shqy7