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John Turnbull, President of the Underwater Research Group of NSW (URG), outlines how underwater research has revealed the incredible nature found in Sydney Harbour. Sydney has an incredibly diverse and very colourful marine community on its doorstep. There is more than twice the number of fish species in Sydney Harbour than the entire coastline of the United Kingdom. There is also an amazing array of underwater gardens, particularly sponge gardens. If you went for a bushwalk on North Head and saw 40 native species of animals you would be excited. That is what you see when you dive at Shelly Beach just around the corner from North Head
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| URG diver Kris O’Keeffe studies a weedy seadragon as part of surveys to understand this threatened species
https://flic.kr/p/LBMK5Z
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Last weekend at Kurnell URG was surveying weedy sea dragons and found a breeding pair moving around in a synchronised way. This courtship dance is something very few people have ever seen but it is now captured on film and can be viewed at the URG website. URG started in the 1950s and back then they would do hand drawings of what they saw. They would also bring up samples if requested by the Australian Museum. Also back then SCUBA gear couldn't be bought in Sydney. A lot of the early URG members were engineers or draftsmen so they made their own. There was very little exploration beyond how far you could dive down with a snorkel so a whole new world opened up as soon as they could make reliable underwater breathing gear.
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| John Turnbull surfaces after completing a Reef Life biodiversity survey off Bouddi National Park
https://flic.kr/p/SXwH8K
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Most people who join URG are interested in the citizen science projects like marine debris, weedy sea dragons and the reef life survey. A lot of their citizen science is done with SCUBA but more and more people can get involved on land, like with cleanups, and even from their desktops. They can click on photos and help identify what they see, being an underwater citizen scientist without getting wet! There are also novel and interesting ways of recording the marine environment being used by scientists. Cameras or sensors can be attached to marine animals like an elephant seal to record things like ocean temperatures and salinity as well as the environment in which it lives. Recruiting animals to be citizen scientists means that data can be gathered data at depths that humans cannot reach.
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| Sponge gardens of Bare Island, La Perouse
https://flic.kr/p/CvZ5dA
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A lot of URG's work does involve diving and Sydney has good diving all year round. While experienced divers are well balanced underwater, newcomers have to go into these situations with an open mind and a sense of adventure. It can be cold, it is wet and it can be hard to see if visibility is down. Newcomers should join a club or dive shop and dive with people who are experienced and know the area so you can dive in the best place given the conditions. Newcomers interested in citizen science should progressively build their diving skills and slowly take on one task after another. The last thing you want to be doing is writing on your underwater slate or photographing things while trying to control your buoyancy.
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|  Abundance of fish at Sydney’s Cabbage Tree Bay https://flic.kr/p/noWcoc
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It is very important to create as many opportunities as possible for people to experience and interact with nature, a long way from their passive lifestyles in their concrete jungle. You will see a totally different world without leaving the ocean backyard of your own city. We have to remember that nature is both on land and under water. Now that is an understatement.
John Turnbull was interviewed for A Question of Balance by Ruby Vincent. Images from John Turnbull. Summary text by Victor Barry 26 June 2017.
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