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About 50,000 Spider Crabs invaded Port Phillip Bay about a week ago, and are still going strong.  Grace and I were lucky enough to capture some amazing photos and some truly creepy video footage of the marching hoardes.  If Paul Verhoven is watching, maybe this can be the inspiration for a new movie.  (Click for a bigger version of the images)

You can read some scientific background on Spider Crabs, but the pictures speak for themselves.  They were everywhere, surrounding us, along with about four large 2-metre rays which were (we assume) reveling in crab carnage.  It was the first dive where I really felt like I was in the middle of one of those "eat or be eaten" BBC special presentations about the ocean.

The Age has a quick article about the event, and it is rare for divers to be able to see it.  We were just lucky enough to end up at Rye Pier with a new camera while it was still happening.

The movie is definitely a sight to behold.  I captured this with my Olympus C-7070 in movie mode, and was surprised at what good footage a still camera would capture.

Finally, here is a beautiful hi-res photo of the red sponges on the Rye Pier pylons with our friends the Spider Crabs enjoying themselves.  (Click for a larger view.)

All of these images were taking with a new Olympus 7.1 Megapixel C-7070 camera and an Ikelite housing designed specifically for the camera.  For the video, no flash was used.  Other photos were taken with the internal camera flash and the Ikelite diffuser.

This is my first underwater photography attempt, and I clearly think more underwater photographs will be coming in future posts.

[tags: scuba diving, scuba, crabs]

Tags: Scuba, Scuba Diving