Unfortunately the excellent conditions from a week ago had not lasted. While the weekend itself was sunny and warm we had some heavy rains during the week that messed up visibility quite badly. Additionally the winds were quite strong and forced us to change our original plans. On Saturday we were hoping to dive some of the wrecks outside the Port Phillip Bay. Unfortunately with the heavy winds this turned out impossible and we were forced to dive inside the Bay instead.
First we checked out South Channel Fort, a small island in the Bay with some old fortifications. I hadn’t done the site before myself so it was nice to check it out. The small pier on the island was particularly pretty and there were several big schools of fish swimming underneath it. We also explored the coastline starting from the pier.
There are lots of remains from the old jetty down there and also a pretty good variety of fish. We also saw several stingrays and also one cuttlefish. Overall the site seemed quite interesting despite the somewhat poor visibility. It seems like a nice alternative to Pope’s Eye when the weather conditions are too rough to dive outside the Heads.
After the two boat dives some of the guys headed back to Melbourne and took the boat with them. Bauke, Crystal, Nicky and I stayed behind as we were camping overnight in Rye. We set up the tents and then to finish up the day Bauke and I hopped in for a night dive under Rye Pier. There was a fair bit of current but otherwise the conditions were good. Visibility was surprisingly nice, around five meters.
We also spotted a lot of interesting marine life during the dive. We didn’t see any blue-ring octopuses this time but on the way to Elsa’s Reef we ran into a small octopus on the sand. We followed it for quite a while taking shots. We almost got lost in the process too, but we still managed to find our way back to the track leading to Elsa’s. There were also lots of different crabs around, including several spider crabs. Elsa’s Reef should be really cool when the annual spider migration starts again in May!
On Sunday we met up with another group of club members who had driven down from Melbourne. Our original plan was to dive the Rye Pier first. However, after talking with some people who had already done the dive that morning it sounded like the conditions were not the best. Visibility had gone done from last night so we decided to move on to Portsea.
Not sure if that made a huge difference in the end, visibility was probably about the same as in Rye. Around three meters that is. The dive was still fairly decent, we saw lots of different nudibranchs and a seadragon too.
To finish up the day we moved on to Flinders. So far so good, it looked nice and calm on the surface. Unfortunately visibility was really poor there, Western Port is pretty prone to flood waters from rains. For me this was the worst visibility of this summer, around two meters for the most part.
Luckily the dive itself was still quite interesting and the conditions were otherwise great. The tide was actually one of the highest I have done Flinders in. There was a nice variety of marine life, but surprisingly Bauke and I didn’t ran into any seadragons. We did find another big smooth ray, however. There was also another school of those small fish that look like glassfish.
While the poor visibility (and current on some dives) made photography somewhat tricky, the weekend was otherwise quite enjoyable and we had some great dives.
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