Dive Number: 11 06/03/2010 12.14 Cottage by the Sea, Queenscliffe
Wind: 15knot westerlies turning to southerlies. Storm building towards end of dive with strong gusts.
Tide: 2 hours past 0.09 low tide at heads
Conditions: A bit of surface chop, but little swell. Steady current running. Storm started building towards end of dive with current running fast and shore swell building causing me to end dive early.
Bottom Type: Reef and Rock legdes over sand.
Visibilty: 6-8m clouding to 2-3m
Water Temp: 20c
Bottom Time: 99 minutes
Max Depth: 7m
Air usage: 140bar/2000psi
SAC: 10.1 litres/min
Details: I checked out the reef near the Pilots Pier, but the current was running to fast, so i decided to head to Cottage again. It was far from perfect conditions with the wind starting to move around to the south. I also forgot one of my booties, so i had to go barefoot…freaked me out everytime i felt weed on my feet! I checked out the eastern section of the reef again at cottage. Theres a nice little amphitheatre area with deep rock legdes. Towards the end of the dive i came across a section where the fish where going nuts as the storm approached and started stiring up the water. I saw my first Rainbowfish on this dive.
Camera Details: Canon 10-17mm fisheye, single SS200 strobe.
Dive Report: There wasn’t much distance travelled on this dive. After swimming over the back of the reef, i was out a fair way offshore before descending into a little amphitheatre. I had another go at some gorgonian fans with a magpie perch performing acrobatics around them.
A close up of some gorgonians fans:
A couple of large moonlighters hung around under a ledge, but only one was friendly enough for photos:
Old wives were everywhere on this dive, and its hard not to photograph them as they often approach so close.
Here’s a couple just floating under a overhang:
I have way to many old wives photos and i’m still not totally happy with any of them, so i thought i’d play around with black and white to see how that would work.
Old wives are a very reflective fish and if you dont just lightly touch them with strobe they tend to overexpose. Its usually an annoying quality, but i thought it added a nice effect to this photo as one swum through a ring of weed.
I finally got a decent exposure of a group of old wives..pity the background lacks a bit of interest.
Theres a group of fish that don’t seem to like staying under rock legdes and on the seabed. This is the leatherjacket family who prefer the open water at the top of the reef. The two most common were the Blue-lined Leather Jacket and Yellow-striped Leatherjacket.
Heres a closer shot of the Yellow-striped Leatherjacket:
And another of the Blue-lined Leatherjacket:
Towards the end of the dive the conditions started to turn really nasty but it sent the fishlife crazy. I swum into a area where the activity was frenetic. Pictured here are about 20 old wives, but there were more like 50 in the area, with dusky morwongs and sweep swimming amongst them.
A dusky morwong swoops through the school:
Amongst all the action i spotted a lone fish i’d never seen before, with stunning markings. A rainbowfish which are suppose to live beneath the weed and rarely venture out. This one didn’t stay still for long and was tough to photograph, but i was happy to get a shot for the record.
After snapping off a couple of shots of the rainbowfish, i high tailed it towards shore as the current was getting dangerously strong and the visibilty was aweful. I’ll probably never dive cottage that late in the flood again, but it was good to see what its like.