On 22 February 2009, Living Seas Hong Kong members Dod O’Dwyer and Jeffrey Lee joined fellow member Ken Chan on a dive trip with Diving Express to Shelter Island (牛尾洲) to brave the 18-19C water to take a look at one of Hong Kong’s popular dive training sites. Our 3mm wetsuit together with a vest and hood managed to keep us warm enough to complete two full tank dives.
Shelter Island has a primarily shallow sandy bottom with many large underwater boulders, but there are also sparse areas of hard corals, as well as several species of sea urchins and sea anemones dotting the seabed. Large mottled sea stars (飛白楓海星 – Archaster typicus) crawl around slowly. On an ordinary dive, you are likely to see Clark’s Anemone fish (Clownfish – Amphiprion clarkii) and translucent Anemone Shrimp huddling in the anemones for protection. Also commonly seen are marbled rockfish, schools of several different species of both Cardinal and Damselfish, as well as Gobies hiding in their burrows, or sometimes in empty shells or bottles. Occasionally pufferfish, or even medium sized groupers, snappers and sweetlips might pass by.
Unfortunately, another common sight, especially in winter, is discarded fishing nets. Many fishermen apparently cast their nets in the winter when they are less disturbed by pleasure boats or divers in the water. By Spring every year, a new set of discarded fishing nets can be found all across Port Shelter.
勃勃海洋 冬季本地潛水之旅
在2009年2月22日，勃勃海洋成員 Dod O’Dwyer、Jeffrey Lee和Ken Chan參加了潛水快線（Diving Express）的活動，潛水地點是牛尾洲這個甚受歡迎的本地潛水訓練場地。當日水溫只有18、19度左右，全靠三毫米厚的潛水服、防寒背心和頭罩保暖，團員纔能完成兩個氣樽的下潛。
牛尾洲的水底是一層淺沙，上面有許多大型卵石和零落的石珊瑚，海床裏散落了幾款海膽和海葵，色彩斑駁而體型不小的飛白楓海星（Archaster typicus）則在懶慵地爬去爬來。在一般潛水時，不難見到克氏海葵魚（Clark’s Anemone fish，即 Amphiprion clarkii，為小丑魚的一種）和半透明的海葵蝦在海葵之間蜷縮，以求保護。常見的還包括石九公（marbled rockfish）、不同種類的梳籮魚（Cardinalfish）和雀鯛（Damselfish）魚群、躲在洞穴的刺鰭魚，以及空空如也的貝殼和瓶子。雞泡魚亦非稀客，甚至中等身型的石斑魚（grouper）、鯛魚（snapper）和細鱗（sweetlip）也會偶爾出現。
可惜，在冬天的水底還有一種常見東西︰被拋棄的捕魚網。冬天時遊人的船隻減少，潛水的人亦不多，漁夫於是就會拋出更多魚網。然後，每年春天這些被拋棄的魚網就會佈滿牛尾海中。
勃勃海洋將繼續把潛水活動資訊上載，供公眾瀏覽，網頁亦會包括日後旅程的資料。