back in the drink

After what has seemed like an eternity I was back in the wayer diving today. Damn it was good to be back. Facts and figures go something like...40mins in the water to a max depth of a little over 25m. Vis was around 15m, maybe a bit more. Temp was a nice 22 degrees on the surface and a cold, damn cold 16 degrees and maybe a bit less at depth. In my 3mm wetsuit I felt that cold. Oh yeah, it was chilly. The site was just to the south of Bushrangers Bay in at Bass Point, Shellharbour. The arch and the cave and a bit of reef and wall, done from the shore. A bit of a walk from the car park to a rock platform where we opted for entry spot two because spot one looked, well, a bit lumpy.

Once I got used to having no feeling in my nuts and shivering - DJ and Chad were in semi-dry suits and they were feeling the cold too - we got on with heading north from our entry point, along a steepish wall and to the arch. It's only a low thing, but nice to swim through. There is a big sand bank that has built in the arch itself. It's structurally quite impressive and photogenic. I, of course, had no camera. Lifewise, on the outside there were a fair number of cool nudbranchs. Fixed life in the area is a bit disappointing, probably because this bit of shore takes a bit of a pounding from the south. But there are sponges and soft corals (I always say both but don't know one from another. Anyway, there is some fixed life.) Fish life was OK with the usual suspects - old wives, various wrasse, cale, rock-cod, one spot puller and so on; no real big stuff. Yet. After the arch we headed back south and found the cave, which had a large school of big-eye cascading the southern wall and inside had a pool of warm(er) water. Quite pleasant in there actually. The thermocline was a mixed-depth affair between 13 and 18m.

From there we headed further south and started a slow ascent up the rock wall and towards our exit point. Biggest fish-spot was on the way back and was, spotted from the top of the wall, at the bottom, an enormous bull ray. Size of a small car. Unlike Steve Irwin we maintained a respctful 8m distance above and survived. Damn it was big. From there we headed shorewards to our exit, a route that took us through warm, clear water and over kelp and seagrass and plenty more fish hiding in holes in the rock.

The three of us have not dived together sonce the day before DJ's wedding some 4 years earlier. It was fantastic to be back in the water with those guys. Our previous dive had been in Bushranger's Bay too. I hope this was the first of many more dives. Loads more to write about from this weekend, but I'm knackered so I'll leave that till the morning.