Nearly six years ago, my very first blog post was about the strange blue and violet creatures that live at the ocean’s surface – a group I christened Norfolk Island’s ‘Elite Fleet’. Since then I’ve seen plenty of bluebottles and the occasional violet sea snail, but never a by-the-wind sailor. Until this morning. Velella velella is not a true jellyfish, but a colonial hydrozoan with a transparent sail that lets the wind help carry it across the ocean. So what exactly is this extraordinary little creature, how does it ‘sail’, and what connects it to the rest of the fleet?

I support the proposed expansion of Norfolk Marine Park and its renaming as Norfolk Island Marine Park. There is much to welcome – strong offshore protection, no mining, and recognition of the importance of sustainable local fishing. But I also have some reservations. Why does Cascade need to be removed from the Marine Park at all? How will more than 430,000 km² actually be monitored and enforced? How do we make sure Norfolk people have a genuine role in management? And, above all, how do we ensure that the enormous new park does not draw attention away from the small, stressed reef immediately beside us?

Norfolk Island does not have seagrass, although one of our most conspicuous green algae is often mistaken for it. Feather and grape Caulerpa can both form striking patches across the lagoon. I take a closer look at what Caulerpa actually is, why it is so easily confused with seagrass, and where our green turtles fit into the story.

Two major new coral reef reports carry a clear message for Norfolk Island: reefs can recover when pressures ease, but the time available for recovery is shrinking. Norfolk Islanders were raising concerns about water quality, runoff and the health of Emily and Slaughter Bays nearly forty years ago. Today we have much better science, a changing climate and a far clearer understanding of how closely the catchment and reef are connected. This article looks at what that means for water quality, long-term monitoring, dredging and how we manage Kingston from land to sea.

A fish once thought to belong only to Norfolk turns up elsewhere; another appears here hundreds of kilometres beyond its known range. Cardinalfishes and a Sabre squirrelfish show how our maps of species distributions are revised.

A Norfolk chromis that turned out not to be Chromis fumea, a blenny found nowhere else, and a tiny goby that may not yet have a name. A look at what we mean by native, endemic, undescribed and newly described – and why scientific names sometimes change.

A proliferation of Bryopsis on the reef has brought some beautiful little underwater grazers with it. I follow the trail from sap-sucking sea slugs and egg masses to a bigger question – why is there so much Bryopsis around at the moment?

I’ve seen the beautiful shells of Laciolina chloroleuca in Emily Bay for decades, but I’d never really stopped to wonder where the living animals were. It turns out they may be buried half a metre beneath the sand. A closer look at an easily overlooked clam, its extraordinary shell markings, and the hidden life beneath our lagoon.

What I thought would be a steady plod towards retirement, with plenty of time spent nursing grandchildren, was abruptly upended exactly six years ago today. This is the story of how an environmental catastrophe changed the course of my life – and led me to reinvent myself. It is a reflection on how, and why, I became an accidental marine scientist.