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Only a few days after our Gambier visit it was already time for another big diving trip. Our club trip to Wilsons Promontory a year ago was a great success and obviously everyone was keen to get back there for more awesome diving. This time we were also better prepared for the conditions and hoping to avoid the few incidents we had last year.

The Scuba Divers Federation of Victoria has been organizing the annual Wilsons Prom trip over the Melbourne Cup long weekend for quite a while now. Wilsons Prom is fairly remote and has minimal infrastructure for diving so having multiple dive clubs around certainly makes life a little bit easier. This year we had a pretty impressive turnout from the local clubs, even the Flinders University Underwater Club all the way from Adelaide was there! Our former club president Crystal was on a short visit to Melbourne, so she joined the trip as well.

Luke, Evan and I were the first to get there on Friday, as it was MUUC’s turn to organize the Saturday night BBQ we also stopped on the way to pick up lots of sausages and other food stuffs. Catering for close to a hundred people (not all divers, plenty of people from other clubs had brought their families too) sure is a lot of work! But we were determined to make sure things worked more smoothly this year. Last year our club missed out on the barbeque completely as by the time we got there all the food was already gone!

After getting to the camping ground at Tidal River we played with Evan’s quadcopter for a while, good fun while bit tricky! Then it was time to set up our tents and wait for the other club members to get there. We had quite a few people joining us, most in tents and a few in cabins nearby. By the time we got the last tent setup it was getting quite late, definitely time to get some sleep.

In the morning it was time to get started with the actual diving. While the weather on Saturday was looking great for diving a big storm was supposed to hit the Prom sometime in the early hours of Sunday. So obviously everyone was keen to do as much diving as possible before that happened! Since we had only one boat with us we were rotating divers, four trips a day meant everyone got to do two dives.

I also did my first proper boat-sitting on this trip. For the first dive we had chosen the Pinnacle and I was sitting that dive. Happily everything went smoothly, and soon enough I had picked up the divers from the water and we were heading back to the shore to pick up a new group of divers.

The second dive of the day (and my first of the trip) was the Humpback. This was an excellent dive a year ago and it didn’t disappoint this time either. The site is full of big rocks covered in zoanthids, cool walls and several swimthroughs, including one large vertical pipe. I was diving with Mathilde and we both had an excellent dive!

For my second dive of the day I did the Skull Rock. We had a number of incidents on this site last year, including my problems with the blocked exhaust valve. Luckily things went smoothly this time, we hopped in with Evan, Mathilde, Seth and Alycia. We started the dive by checking out the the tunnels going through the rock. Current was pretty minimal this time and the dive was certainly lot more enjoyable than a year ago!

While not real caves the swimthroughs leading through the sides of the rock are certainly very cool! After going through the rock twice we started following the reef to a deeper area with some cool valleys and walls. Unfortunately it was also getting bit too deep for the OW divers diving with us. At one point Mathilde had a minor incident and her fin came off. after assisting her we decided it was time to head back to shallower waters.

After some playing around in the shallows and some photography we headed back to the surface and joined up Crystal on the boat. On the way back we drove past one of the seal colonies. There were quite a few seals up on a big rock, including one that had suffered some rather nasty injuries. Luckily he had gotten back to the safety of the colony, but he was still pretty badly wounded with some big gashes on his side. Hopefully he survives the ordeal!

Back on the shore it was time to get started with the barbeque. As we had brought plenty of food we thought we were well prepared. Sadly this didn’t turn out to be true. We had an even bigger turnout than expected and sadly some people thought it was ok to go not only for seconds, but for thirds and fourths without paying extra! We still had enough food for almost everyone, but a few latecomers were left out. At least it was well beyond the scheduled time of the bbq at that point. Still, it seems to be impossible to keep everyone happy. At least it will be several years before it is our time to organize the bbq again, as this task rotates between the clubs.

While weather was still looking nice it was clear based on the forecast that there would not be any diving on Sunday. Quite a few of us went for a late evening walk, Prom is certainly a great spot for walking both day and night. Afterwards we settled down at our tents to get some sleep before the storm. The storm hit us in the early hours of the morning and this was definitely a big one! Luckily all our tents survived the storm, even the big multi-room one Seth had brought. With the storm blowing there was no way I was getting more sleep, so I got up with sunrise to do some more walking. Unfortunately it started raining quite heavily after a while, so I was forced to return to the campground.

We spent the rest of the day hiking too. First we walked up to the top of Mt Bishop. Mt Bishop may not be the highest peak on the Prom, but the view from the top is still quite spectacular. Especially on a really windy day like this with big waves breaking all along the coastline!

Afterwards we visited the nearby Squeaky Beach (named after the fine sand making “squeaky” sounds when stepped on). It was sad seeing all the dead birds along the coastline, the storm had certainly taken its toll on the poor animals. Then we headed back to the camp and spent the rest of the day there hoping that weather would improve by the next morning.

The waves were still looking quite large on Monday morning but luckily things improved enough by afternoon that we could safely launch our boat. Quite a few of our divers had already headed back to Melbourne at this point so at least we no longer had to return back to shore during the day to switch divers.

The launch itself and the way out was still quite rough, but we found a well-protected spot near one of the bigger rocky islands. This wasn’t one of the marked dive sites, but we still decided to hop in for a look. The site turned out quite nice, lots of bommies and boulders covered in zoanthids. There were also several impressive seawhips around the site, hence we decided to name it “Seawhip Cove”. Visibility was still decent too, we had been concerned that the storm might have muddied up the waters.

Some of us had spotted a small beach on the island while waiting on the boat, so for the surface interval we decided to go in for a closer look. A few of us swam in first and found a couple of really cool dry caves near the beach! One of them went on for quite a while too, sadly there was some rubbish in there that had been washed or blown in. Still a really cool find! We took the boat in carefully on the beach and then all of us spent some more time exploring. We also climbed to the top of the island, the view from up there was quite spectacular.

However, as we had started the day late and people still wanted a second dive we couldn’t spend too much time on the island playing pirates as Alycia would have preferred. For the second dive we headed over to the Eagle’s Peak, a dive site on the exposed side of this same island. Eagles Beak is known as one of the best dives in the area and it certainly lived up to its reputation. It was somewhat rough of the surface, but luckily there wasn’t too much surge underwater.

There were some impressive boulders, several small caves and spectacular swimthroughs to explore. At one point we also had a pair of seals checking us out and getting close and personal. Sadly I couldn’t quite get the camera focus right and didn’t get any good photos of them. Considering how interesting the site was I could have spent a long time down there. Sadly my buddy Stuart went through his air quite quickly so our bottom time was relatively short.

As we were returning to the shore we had our only bigger incident of the trip. It was fairly rough in the Norman Bay and just as we were getting shallow enough to jump off one of the tanks must have been knocked open. Everyone got really distracted trying to find the leaking tank. Then people started jumping off the boat to get the car and the trailer. Suddenly only Luke was left on the boat but he wasn’t driving, he was still trying to find the leaking tank!

The boat started turning sideways into the waves and things got quite chaotic. I was in deeper water myself and relatively safe but Evan and Seth had quite a scare when the boat almost crashed into them while bouncing on the waves! Luckily Luke got things under control and we were able to get the boat and all the divers back on shore safely.

On Tuesday we headed out one last time, our first dive was back at the Eagles Beak. This time I was diving with Isaac who was certainly lot better on air than Stuart. We spent a lot of time exploring the caves and swimthroughs in this area. Of particular interest was a decent size chamber beneath a massive boulder with several tunnels branching off! This was definitely the best dive of the trip for me and one of the best dives I have ever done.

We had had a fairly late morning so it was getting bit late already, but some of us were still keen for one more dive. This time we headed to Humpback again. Our dive plan was to follow the coastline to the Pinnacle on the protected side of the island.

Unfortunately this plan didn’t work too well. Humpback is very exposed and the swell was still fairly heavy. This meant some fairly strong surge too, especially in the swimthroughs and some of the holes. The surge was less of an issue once we left the more exposed area, however the underwater scenery got less interesting too. Soon enough most of the bigger boulders were gone and the rocks were mainly covered in kelp instead of colorful zoanthids.

The rest of the dive was frankly bit boring, the only more interesting sight was a massive ball of bait fish. I managed a few quick (overexposed) shots and then they were swimming away already. Soon afterwards Isaac and I returned to the surface, it was time to get the boat back to the shore as some people were getting anxious to return to Melbourne.

Unfortunately on the way back we ran into some further delays in the form of boat issues. At this point the boat was running little low on fuel, but there was still plenty to get back to shore safely. However, suddenly the engine started stalling while bouncing up and down on the waves. After the main engine stalled a few times we tried to get the spare fuel tank connected. Unfortunately we found out there was an issue with the fuel line, so that didn’t work too well either. Eventually we were able to pour some fuel directly to the main tank and the engine started working again.

We were not really sure what the issue was as there had still been a fair bit of fuel left in the tank. Big Boat has given us a fair share of problems in the past and it’s definitely time to try to get it replaced! Either way, we really need the fuel line fixed ASAP. At least there was no real emergency this time and we had plenty of time to sort out the problem. The rest of the trip back was problem free, we got back to the shore safely, finished packing our gear and started the drive back to Melbourne.

Despite the stormy Sunday and the boat problems the trip was still a resounding success. For me Wilsons Prom has the best diving in Victoria, it’s a shame we can’t go there more often! Two great dive trips in a row definitely makes up for a quiet Spring!

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Unfortunately the weather this Spring has been quite disappointing and the decent September was followed by a windy and rainy October. This meant very little opportunity for diving but luckily the weather isn’t an issue for the Mt Gambier caves. We had planned to head back there with Adrian ever since our cave course in June. Now was finally our chance to explore Pines properly and visit some of the cave rated sites we missed during the course.

Pines is by far the largest cave-rated site in Mt Gambier and consequently we did most of our dives there. While a major part of the cave is only available for advanced cave divers, there is still a fair number of tunnels and chambers to explore.

After arriving in Mt Gambier on Thursday evening we had an lazy start on Friday. We headed out to Pines in the afternoon and started preparing for our first dive. Unfortunately I found out that I had left my camera at the Pine Tank lodge. Oh well, it was probably sensible to do the first dive without the camera anyway since I hadn’t done any cave diving for several months.

The dive itself was quite nice, we headed down the side tunnel first which took us to the bottom of the main chamber. From there we continued exploring one of the side tunnels branching off. On the way back we decided to lock off the reel and leave it at the bottom of the main chamber for our second dive of the day. But before that Adrian needed his tanks topped up.

Unfortunately we hit some hiccups while filling up the tanks back at the Pine Tank lodge. We had both used the fill station several times before, but this time we both struggled to remember how to use it. Eventually I figured it out but by then it was already dark outside. Not that it really matters in the caves, especially on a cloudy day when even the Pines main chamber is fairly dark. Besides, we couldn’t really leave our reel in the Pines for the night since other divers had booked in for the next day.

So off we went back to the Pines. We picked up the reel where we had left it in the main chamber and continued exploring the side tunnels. My main torch was acting up a little bit on the dive, but it never got too serious. Besides, I had my camera with me this time so I could just keep the strobe focus lights running the whole dive.

We entered some pretty small tunnels on this dive, especially since I was diving with the camera now. In one of the tighter tunnels Adrian had a valve roll off and at the same time my camera was getting little bit tangled on some loose line. This was a potentially serious incident, but we handled it calmly and sorted everything out. Still, it was clearly time to head back to the surface, we had had a nice long dive already anyway.

Our second day of diving started with a very minor yet rather annoying incident. We were checking out one of the tight tunnels branching from near the top of the main chamber in Pines. Things were getting bit tight and then suddenly I felt water coming in my drysuit from somewhere near the shoulder! It was too tight to check what was wrong so I backed off to the main chamber to figure out where the leak was. Apparently my drysuit zipper had been pushed slightly open when I was wriggling through the tunnel sideways.

Unfortunately by the time I figured this out and closed the zipper my suit was quite wet. Time to call the dive and head back to the surface to dry out the suit and get some dry clothes on. And to make it even worse the tunnel we were exploring doesn’t even seem to lead anywhere, it just keeps getting tighter and tighter.

After this incident we had a break on the surface, I dried my drysuit the best I could and switch into some dry clothes. Not as good as a proper undersuit, but still better than a soaking wet one!

Then we hopped back in, headed to the bottom of the main chamber and explored a few of the tunnels leading off from there. Some of the areas got quite silty, and at one point I even opted not to follow Adrian to one of the tighter tunnels as the visibility was getting quite poor.

Eventually it was time to get back to the main chamber and follow the line back to the surface. While it was still partially cloudy we were now getting enough sunlight for some decent natural light shots on the way back up. Pines is not quite as impressive as the more open sites like Kilsbys, but the main chamber is still quite pretty with the sun shining above.

After this dive it was finally time for something slightly different. We picked up the key for Allendale Cave and started the climb down to the water level.

While a nice enough cave, Allendale is also quite small. From the cave entrance a tunnel leads at an angle down to a larger main chamber, and this is pretty much all there is to the dive. There are a few small side passages, but they don’t really lead anywhere.

Adrian was still keen to try to push a few of the tunnels, in particular the silty hole at the bottom of the main chamber. Sadly it is pretty clear this hole leads nowhere, while you can wiggle your way in for a while the tunnel simply ends. On the way back up there’s also a slightly larger side tunnel, but this doesn’t lead anywhere either.

It was nice to visit the cave that we had only dived on our cave course. Still, we both felt that our 30 minute dive time was pretty much the maximum you would want to spend down there. We had some bad luck on this dive too. As we were getting out of water Adrian pierced his drysuit on some sharp rocks.  This resulted in a hole that was definitely big enough to be annoying. And his suit was almost brand new, too!

While we still had a few hours of daylight left it was clearly time to call it a day and see if we could get the drysuit fixed. Luckily I had brought my Aquaseal glue, so we applied some on the hole and let it dry for the night.

Then in the morning we headed back to Pines for our final dive there. Luckily the repair had been successful and Adrian’s suit was no longer leaking. We started the dive by going down the side tunnel and then explored the low silty tunnel below the main chamber. This tunnel is quite low but also relatively wide. However, as the bottom and the sides are covered in white fine silt great care must be taken, especially with backmount. We managed pretty well, only at our turning point we had some silting.

On the way back we also visited the sign that indicates the beginning of the Advanced Cave section. Anything beyond this point was obviously off-limits for us, so after a few photos we turned back and made our way to the surface through the side tunnel. With a long bottom time, some interesting sights and no real issues this was definitely our best dive in Pines so far.

We had enough gas and time left for one more dive. Our pick was Engelbrect East, a site neither of us had done before. This cave is right in the middle of Mt Gambier and the sizable dry cave area is also popular with tourists. In fact guided tours are often timed so they get to the dry cave when divers are getting up from a dive.

The dive begins in a small underground pool in the dry cave area. This section gets silted really easily, so care must be taken when entering and gearing up. From the pool a low but reasonably wide tunnel leads to the rest of the cave. Along the way we checked out a few tunnel entrances, but didn’t find anything overly interesting.

The cave itself is quite pretty and looks rather different from the other cave level sites in the area. However, the main attraction of the dive was definitely the large underground chamber at the end of the tunnel. There is quite a large chamber there with breathable air!

However, even with this distraction our dive was a short one. After checking out the air chamber we headed back to the entry pool and got out. Then it was time for the long climb back to the surface, a major disadvantage with this site. It’s a lot of steps back up from the dry cave to the surface! At least the steps are not very steep but it’s still hard work climbing back up with full scuba gear on a hot day!

Overall we both felt this trip was quite successful despite a few minor problems. It was well worth heading back to Mt Gambier after our cave course, even if it took us several months to get a trip organized!

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The great boat dives in mid-September got my hopes up but unfortunately the great conditions didn’t last and rest of the month turned out quite windy. Luckily many of the Port Phillip shore dives are well protected from most winds so there’s usually at least some options for a sheltered dive. At 14 degrees water was still quite cool for most divers so it was just Walson and me heading out on the 29th.

We had picked Blairgowrie and Rye piers as the dive sites. Blairgowrie is a safe choice in most conditions as the sea wall at the outer edge of the pier blocks most of the waves. Despite the fairly strong winds we had an excellent long dive there in great conditions and good visibility.

There was also plenty to see, including lots of nudibranchs, a few seahorses and a couple of stingrays too. Out of the nudibranchs the Hedgpeth’s dorids were the most common sight. I managed to get some great shots of them.

The second dive at Rye wasn’t as impressive and the conditions were bit choppy, especially in shallower water. Our visit to the artificial Elsa’s Reef near the pier was disappointing too, the structure has more or less fallen apart by now. A big shame, it was a nice addition to a rather short pier dive.

The main highlight of this dive were the numerous spider crabs. There were quite a few of them around and I managed some nice closeups of them. Obviously this wasn’t a full crab migration or anything close, just a dozen or so spider crabs hanging around the pier. A great distraction on an otherwise average dive.

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The Spring is finally here and hopefully more diving too! Not much had happened on the diving front this Winter so I was really looking forward to some better conditions again.

We finally got our perfect day in mid-September. It was sunny and calm, a great day to take the boat out with Evan and Luke. We started out at Portsea Backbeach Wall, a reef dive I had only done once before as one my first dives in Melbourne. There are more impressive reefs around the coast, but it was still  pleasant dive with decent variety of fish, including several blue devils. My only real complaint was the somewhat lackluster visibility.

I was diving with Luke, Jess and Walson. Luke has had his new camera kit for quite a while now, but this was actually the first time I saw the thing in action. Quite impressive, even if those strobe arms are definitely very long!

Then for the next dive Luke and the OW-rated divers jumped in at the Lonsdale Arches. And finally to wrap up the day I did the J5 submarine with Evan and Oscar. I had only dived this particular sub once before so this dive was definitely the highlight of the day for me. The wreck lies down at 36 m and it is relatively intact. At this depth penetration is not feasible with a single tank so we simply stayed on top of the wreck. Of particular interest is the conning tower completely covered in yellow zoanthids, hence the nickname “yellow submarine”.

At this depth no-decompression limits are short, especially since we had already done one dive earlier. For some reason Oscar’s computer gave him a really short bottom time, so we had even less time on the wreck itself than usual. I had just enough time to get a few nice shots and then it was already time to start ascending.

Unfortunately the ascent didn’t go quite as planned. On the way to the final safety stop Oscar had some buoyancy issues and ended up going straight to the surface.

He was obviously little bit shocked when the boat picked him up, but luckily there was no lasting harm from the ascent. Apart from this incident the day was very enjoyable, hopefully the rest of the Spring diving is this good!

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Between the poor winter weather, couple of colds and the New Zealand trip there were precious little opportunities for diving in June and July. It took until August for me to get back in the ocean. By far the longest break I have had since I broke my arm!

After a few mishaps we got down to Flinders and started preparing for the dive. It was quite windy but otherwise a pleasant winter day and we were looking forward to a decent dive.

Unfortunately the conditions underwater were rather poor. Visibility was quite bad and there was a lot of organic junk floating around. Not the ideal conditions for photos! Not that there was that much to see anyway, just a few fish. Not even a single seadragon in sight!

Luckily our second dive at Rye turned out better. This side of the peninsula is more exposed to northerly winds and it was rather choppy on the surface. Due to several delays during the day it was also getting quite late and by the time we got in the water it was already getting close to dusk.

Luckily this dive was lot more pleasant than the one at Flinders. Apart from slight choppiness the conditions were ok and visibility was ok as well. There was decent amount of marine life too, including several seahorses and lots of crabs. Some of the others saw an octopus too but I missed that.

After a couple of weeks it was time to head back for more shore dives, this time with just Walson. It was a beautiful sunny winter day if a touch windy. We started our day at Blairgowrie, pretty much always a safe choice.

The pier didn’t disappoint this time either. This was the best dive I have done in a long while and decent length too at 53 minutes. We saw several seahorses, pretty seastars, a few nudibranchs and a fiddler ray. And to make it even better there was a massive school of salmon swimming around. Sadly they never let me get close enough to take a good shot with the macro lens but it was still a very impressive sight and they stayed around for ages.

Our second dive at Rye was nice too, even if it wasn’t quite as good as Blairgowrie. We saw more seahorses, lots of crabs and decent variety of fish species. There was also a lot of jellyfish floating around in the water.

We also had a look at Elsa’s reef bit further away from the pier. Unfortunately this artificial reef has suffered some serious damage over the winter months and most of the structure has collapsed. A shame really, it was shaping up as a nice addition to the normal pier dive.

Despite the minor letdown at Elsa’s this was still an excellent day of diving. It definitely feels that the worst of winter is now over and we are heading towards spring!