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

The Grotto

The Grotto Dive

A Dive Vic boat dive near the heads of port phillip bay, starting at 12 metres with a nice easy slope downward to around 25 metres. A great dive for both new divers and experienced with a diversity of marine life including blue devil fish, rays and lots of great soft corals, swim throughs and trenches.

Dive 292
43 minutes
24.1 metres.

Buddies: Lynne, Mary-Anne, Jonathon

Blairgowrie & Rye Pier Dives

Blairgowrie and Rye Pier diving

An ideal day of diving piers in melbourne.

Start at Blairgowrie see all the Nudi's and a blue ring octopus!  then lunch and refill at RYE followed by a relaxing pier dive at Rye with nice big smooth rays and sea horses, followup with a quick celebration drink at rye pub! 

Thanks Greg for organising!

Scallop Dive

Quick Scallop Dive on Christmas Eve.

With Lynne,

A Scallop dive is an interesting way to collect scallops if you are interested in eating them.
A fisheries licence is required , so get it on line before hand .
The dive site is just off rye and then drifts back toward Sorrento in around 10 metres.
Just remember to look for ones that close as you approach so you know they are alive,
Also think about who is cleaning them afterward!
Due to nature of dive no photos of dive itself.

Blairgowrie Pier with a new strobe!

Blairgowrie Pier.

With Craig Morton and Craig Slattery.
As always an interesting dive.
But even more fun trying out my new Sea and Sea strobe.

Dive 288

Time 1:15 minutes

Camera rig: sony rx100, Recsea housing, Sea and Sea YS-D1, Sola 2000, Ikelite pro2800  , UW fish eye.

(first use of D1 strobe, so some shots learning rather than interesting, overall very happy for first use)

Quick Recovery dive

Quick recovery dive at mordialloc with JJ,
dive objective to recover boat bow rail lost by friend in recent mishap.
Camera for this dive was simple canon s95 rig, with hand held sola light.

Mordi play dive with JJ

Play time with JJ.
A quick dive with JJ to do some shots for his xmas cards.
Vis was very poor after the rains in recent days.

Dive 286

Time 45 minutes

Flinders Pier

Flinders Pier
With Craig and Steven.
Even though it was raining in Melb and windy.
The offshore wind at Flinders meant it was flat seas.

Sea Dragons, Rays and plenty of Fish life, make for a great dive.