Mt Eliza

Mount Eliza,

Earimil Drive at end of this drive is a turning circle which leads down steps to the beach.

Beach dive 

With Simon Kay,

Nice dive, stairs are steep and long but good condition , maybe better site to dive at high tide on calm day. Reef is to the left at the small point and out toward the navigation buoy.
Beach entry is nice with depth quickly achieved, so no long walk across shallows.
Appears to be a nice quite beach area.
Parking at the top is limited so better done as a small group.
The Dive itself was at low tide on the urn , making somewhat surge a issue and limiting photographs and fossicking in the ledges much more difficult. Definitely a do again at high tide.

Flinders pier

Flinders pier with mary anne.

A great day of vis at one of vic best piers.  Dive 322

The bluff, victor harbour south australia

The bluff at victor harbour south australia.

Saturday dive with craig morton and simon kay, at the bluff, 

Very nice dive with good depth, easy access and  plenty of sealife including leafie seadragons.

The leafie seadragon!

Rapid bay

Rapid bay jetty

A weekend away in south australia

Friday  and sunday (4 dives) with craig and simonat rapid bay jetty

Very good jetty for diving but no sign of leafie sea dragons and on the last dive on sunday with incomiing tide very little sea life at all with lower 

Point Linley Reef

Point Linley Reef

A nice night dive at a new spot for me, with Simon Kay, parked in the road carpark entered via beach, surface swim in front of boat ramp and then down and towards the point, then out towards the boat beacons.

Dive: 

Dive time 59 minutes

Depth 6.2 meters

Temp 14c

Blairgowrie

Blairgowrie Pier

Very Nice Saturday dive with Simon and Remi, testing out the new strobes and lights still so under a familiar pier was a good way to go. The conditions were good although the tide was running for the first part of the dive.

Note they have begun the rebuild of the sailing club so there is no direct access to the pier or toilet facilities now. Enter and exit via the beach.

Ricketts Night Dive

Ricketts Night Dive

A night dive after work, great conditions for night diving , flat seas, no wind, almost summer temperatures.

Entry tonight was near the point itself, from the beach which is a nice walk in , shallow as it was low tide but still ok and much safer than the rock entry points further north..  Great diving with Craig and Simon Again. Nice fun with an eel.

Fist time tested the new camera setup, nearly floats , but not much in it, but lots more practice to be done!!

dive time 60+ minutes
max depth 3.4 meters

Flinders Pier

Flinders Pier

A very nice dive today at flinders pier, with Matt Krumins, Andrea , Laura, richard and many more.  Good clear vis , clam waters and lots of weedy seadragons .

Blairgowrie Pier

Blairgowrie Pier

Very nice pier dive today with Simon Kay, conditions were great with sunshine and very calm diving conditions. First dive with Aeris A300 CS dive computer.

Time 1:23 minutes
Depth  5.9m
Temp 9c

The New dive computer: Great display, good menus , but doesn't show Dive Time Lapsed on main screen, originally thought that it was how I set it, but alas no, DTL doesn't show on main screen just NDC and Air time remaining. For a lot of rec dives the more important element is DTL to match run times for boats etc.
Compass has played up (needed battery pull to get working again) and although not a major issue the wireless does drop out way more than a VT3.  Not sure it will suit rec divers with the need to push another button to read Dive time remaining especially when that is a screen with very small text. (why i bought a large display in the first place) .  The picture is actually on land and is pointing West not South as per compass. had tried before dive and was correct, fixed by pulling battery and re-calibrating. just re-calibrating locked up dive computer, requiring the battery removal.

Foggy Reef

Foggy Reef

A great dive today in the most calm conditions ever.

Although vis was ok it was not as good as I have seen at Foggy Reef, and with a reasonable current flowing for most of the dive it almost became a drift dive.  All the usual wall coral and creatures, didn't see the seals that were playing on the surface when we arrived .

Dive buddy was Mary-Anne.
Time 45 minutes
Depth 30 Metres.

Party Point Dive

Party Point Boat Dive

Very Nice boat dive at Party Point, a wall dive with simon and Lynne.

          Camera was not working with the flash 100% , need to figure out what is going wrong.


Dive

Time 45 metres

13c

30.2 depth.

Simon and Lynne at the safety stop

Rye Crab night dive

night die at rye with Simon ,spider crabs and no camera.  which was tucked safely at home!

Blairgowrie

Blairgowrie

Good dive with Mary Anne , who was trying out her new dry suit , just try and guess which brand...

           Fairly normal dive for blairgowrie but went for a wander straight out from the end of the pier, evidently there is some old pier or breakwater there somewhere. didn't find it but did get down to 12  metres.  tried the macro lens rather than the fisheye today. and a big thanks to Mary Anne for picking up my sola light and arm that dropped off the camera and I didn't notice..

Mary Anne with her new dry suit

Flinders night Dive

Flinders Night Dive

A mid week night dive at flinders pier with Simon Kay.

Nice day with flat seas and no wind , too good not to go diving.
Flinders had all the usual flinders creatures, but surprisingly not a lot of night critters you usually find under a pier at night. still a good dive anyway.

Dive 306
Time 80 minutes
depth 4.5

Blairgowrie

Blairgowrie 

Nice dive with Lynne, Craig and Simon.  the pier was a bit disappointing today in terms of fish life, so photos a bit dull , but good practice with strobes and focussing, still nice to be underwater!!

Cottage by the sea

Cottage by the sea

ok, so the last dive was so good just had to try it again. Today was a dive on the end of flood to high tide and the first ten minutes had strong onshore currents, so misjudged the slack by that much! A great dive though with Remi and Lynne, with blue devil fish, port jackson sharks, a huge cuttle fish, lots of angel fish, weedy sea dragons and just about everything in between!.

Dive:304
Time 54 minutes
depth 8.1 m
temp 16c

Cottage by the Sea

Cottage by the Sea

First dive at Cottage by the Sea, a beach dive site just outside of Queenscliff.

This has to be one of the best beach entry sites in the bay, granted today conditions were near perfect, but the wide variety of life from blue devils to sea dragons and almost everything in between made it very interesting. (see maps and directions in read more section.)

Cottage by the Sea dive entry. Enter mear rocks and head straight out toward reef (darker patch near boat anchored).
Nice wall system runs the length with lots of overhangs with plenty of life. 

Dive Buddy:  Simon Kay

Dive:303

Dive Time: 1.07

Depth 7.2 metres.

Boarfish reef

Boar Fish Reef

A boat dive to boar fish reef, a nice reef area in port phillip bay,  with Lynne Sullivan.

            Reasonable amount to see and at a nice comfortable depth of between 15 to 20 metres.
   some camera issues meant pics are not really up to scratch.

Flinders

Flinders

Flinders Pier with Craig, Simon, Peter Mills

Dive 301
Time 1:02

Blairgowrie

300th Dive -Blairgowrie

Celebrating my 300th dive with Simon, Craig, JJ, Peter Mills at Blairgowrie

Blairgowrie Pier

Blairgowrie Pier

Dive at blairgowrie pier, one of my favorite dive sites. Today JJ was trying out his new camera with Reemie and I using the residual air from this mornings dive. 

Dive 299
Time 60 minutes
With JJ and Remi Charpenteau

Boarfish reef

Boarfish Reef

Diving in the bay at the moment rocks!!   Vis like never before, 19C water temp, flat conditions and nice easy currents. Combined with great fish life, cuttlefish, port jackson sharks, and of course the most amazing blue devil fish. Boarfish is a wide reef area boat dive via dive vic. 

Dive 298
Time 49 minutes
Dive Buddies : Lynne and Remie Charpenteau

Foggy Reef

Foggy Reef

A boat dive on Foggy Reef, haven't dive this spot for years, and what a surprise, great part of the wall to dive, at the start of the wall, basically where it turns toward queenscliff, full of overhangs, gullies there is even an anchor to look out for (we didn't see it).  Dive conditions were great. But a novice mistake with the camera (not extending the flash arm ) meant sediment in most shots were a big issue. But a great excuse to do this dive again soon!!

Dive 297
Time 49 minutes
Depth 27 metres
Temp 19

Ricketts Point Night dive

Ricketts Point Night Dive

On Australia day evening , what better way to celebrate than a nice night dive at a local spot.

Night dive with Simon Kay at ricketts point but this time up at the slsc end ,entering via the right hand side of the beach out to the markers turning right to the second marker and then back in to arrive at the right hand side.

night life was minimal although a few schools of small fish were attracted to the lights making seeing much else harder.

Dive 296

Portsea Hole

Portsea hole

Portsea hole dive, a boat dive about 500 metres off the portsea pier, usually a training dive, but still not a bad area to dive especially if you want a short boat dive. Most of the action is between 15 and 20 metres. Sand is a bit of an issue but there is still lots to see in the nooks and crannies of the wall, including blue devil fish.

Dive buddy :Lynne

Dive 295

Capt Nitrox

Captain nitrox 

Port Phillip Wall Dive, very good vis on a great part of the wall.

View of divers at 15 metres from 1 metre below surface

Buddies on this dive were Lynne, Simon and JJ

Dive 294

Dragons Lair

Dragons Lair

(Catchup with Alicia back from the UK )

Despite the name sounding very similar to a number of the wall sites inside the heads, this dive site is just outside of the heads and sits in around 10-20 metres with bommies being the major landscape features and weedy sea dragons proving the name.    

Although a passable dive on a really good day , the location and close proximity to shore means on any sort of conditions it is simply a terrible dive site for a boat dive, with strong surge, low vis and generally uninspiring landscape, and especially as on this dive the shot line was on the outer rim of the bommies due to conditions close in.    

One of the few dives that I will definitely try to avoid in the future as not worth the investment of a boat dive, I also do not recommend it as a dive site for OW divers, simply due to the nature of the dive and the general disappointment they experience when so many other great dive sites exist to grow their excitement for the sport exist. Diving buddy on this dive was Stephen , with group being Simon, Alicia Rick and Amanda. 

Dive 293
Time:39 minutes
Depth 21 metres