


Impossibly beautiful and delicate, I still have yet to catch my own glimpse of SA’s emblematic Leafy Sea Dragon. ‘Where do I go to find them?’ I ask another older diver, a stranger entering the water as I exit. We are speaking on the steps near Port Noarlunga Reef, busy with jetty-jumpers, snorkellers and SCUBAs. ‘Them?!’ they laugh, ‘I know where ONE is!’. The way they say it sends a shiver down my spine. If we could turn back time, would there be more leafies around?