Dive 139 – Queenscliff Pier

Feb

Dive Number: 139 24/02/11 15.03, Queenscliff Pier

Wind: 5-10knot S’s

Tide: 3hrs beofre 1.60 high tide at the heads.

Conditions: Nice day..gentle variable winds but S-SE’s-SW’s all week long. Shore breakers, strong surge and northerly-westerly current.

Visibilty: 3-4m

Water Temp: 20c

Bottom Time: 68minutes

Max Depth: 3.2m

Air usage: 105bar/1500psi

SAC: ???? litres/min

Details: shite..tossed around in shallow surgey, sand-infest water..trying to do macro shots.

Camera Details: Canon 100mm , single SS200 strobes.

Dive Report:

Dive 138 – Cottage by the Sea

By pfuller

Feb

Dive Number: 138 24/02/11 11.24, Cottage by the Sea

Wind: 5-10knot S’s

Tide: 0.5hrs after 0.04 low tide at Geelong.

Conditions: Nice day..gentle variable winds but S-SE’s-SW’s all week long.

Visibilty: 8m dropping to 5m towards end of dive

Water Temp: 18c

Bottom Time: 105minutes

Max Depth: 8.9m

Air usage: 190bar/2800psi

SAC: ???? litres/min

Details: An extremely low tide today, so despite the constant southerlies i thought cottage would be settled. Turned out a nice choice and the vis was pretty good for the first half of the dive. I went out the east side of cottage and swam out the back for a bit of an explore. Some nice overhangs and ledges out there, but there seemed to be alot of sand build up. Saw a cuttle, a big smooth ray and some nice reef scenes.

Camera Details: Tokina 10-17mm , dual SS200 strobes.(behaving badly)

Dive Report:

Snorkel – Search for Parkside Jetty

By pfuller

Feb

22/02/2011 19.00 Parkside Jetty – Corio Bay

Tide: 0.5hr before 1.01 high tide at Geelong

Wind: 15-20knot Southerly

Conditions: Decent southerly blowing but protected by the land. Overcast and unseasonally cold.

Bottom Type: Seagrass beds with scattered rocks.

Bottom Time: 60 minutes

Details: Ian Lewis in his book, “Shore dives of Victoria”, mentions an old jetty between the Geelong Promenade and Limeburners point; Parkside Jetty. I’ve never seen this mentioned anywhere before and have been meaning to head to the historical society to find more info about this, but i thought i’d just have a fossick around the general area to see if i could find it. The visibility was disgusting, under 2m, and the water was so salty it brought tears to my eyes for the first 5 minutes on the dive. Eventually i came across a couple of concrete pylon bases, that i assume may have formed part of the jetty, but they looked too modern, and are possibly just an outlet pipe foundation. The area is generally seagrass beds, so any bottom is not easy to observe. Lots of small weed whiting, a few stingaree’s aroun, and a couple of banjo sharks. One Bango Shark i saw had the body of a banjo shark, but was a dull grey colouration, almost like a stingaree….

In the shallows, were juvenile Half-Bridled Gobies)Arenigobius frenatus.
), Cleaner shrimp, some small stars (Patiriella exigua) i haven’t seen before and a few small crabs(Ozius truncatus).

Camera Details: Canon 100mm , single SS200 strobe.

I think this must be parkside jetty in the background:

Dive 137 – Geelong Promenade

By pfuller

Feb

Dive Number: 137 17/02/11 18.56 , Geelong Promenade

Wind: 15knot S’s

Tide: 2hrs before 0.20 low tide at Geelong.

Conditions: Overcast and dark condition, humid but stable conditions.

Visibilty: 2m

Water Temp: 22c

Bottom Time: 73minutes

Max Depth: 4.7m

Air usage: 80bar/1200psi

SAC: ???? litres/min

Details: Me Stupid. I just made a eyepiece extender for the housing out of an old point and shoot telephoto lens. I made up a temporary bracket to hold it onto the existing eyepiece out of some stainless steel and some screws. The whole point of this dive was to test out this eyepiece to see how water flooding it (and pressure) would affect it. Silly me just followed old habits, put on my dive gear and then clipped on my camera to the D-ring on my harness and walked to the entry point. I trugded across the seagrass beds and out under the promenade and then realised….my eyepiece extender aint there no more. Damn it! Lost before i even got to try it out. Anyway, vis was horrid but i tried to just get a few shots of the smaller fish that were around. I found a nother feral i hadn’t seen before, a Trident Goby or Japanese Goby- Tridentiger trigonocephalus. There were a few brevicardum ceratasomas around and also a pair of Polycera Hedgepethi”s. Found some poor dudes car keys, and 20 cents! (not enough to replace the eyepiece..so i left it for other treasure hunters ;) Here’s some crappy shots in crappy vis.

Camera Details: Canon 100mm , single SS200 strobes.

Dive Report:

Dive 136 – St Leonards Pier

By pfuller

Feb

Dive Number: 136 13/02/11 14.44 , St Leonards Pier

Wind: 15knot S’s

Tide: 2hrs before 0.16 low tide at Geelong.

Conditions: Sun was out from the clouds and the water looked in reasonable. Vis was cloudy but ok.

Visibilty: 4-5m

Water Temp: 20c

Bottom Time: 47 minutes

Max Depth: 3.3m

Air usage: 35bar/500psi

SAC: ???? litres/min

Details: My second short dive of the day with only 500psi (35bar) in the tank. I regretted it after finding some blubber jellies, and bouncing the hell out of the dive dangerously trying to photograph them and conserve air. There were some interesting lighting effects under the pier that worked well wit the jellies.

Camera Details: Tokina 10-17mm , dual SS200 strobes.

Dive Report:

Dive 135 – Steeles Rocks

By pfuller

Feb

Dive Number: 135 13/02/11 13.01 , Steeles Rocks, Portarlington

Wind: 15knot S’s

Tide: 4hrs before 0.16 low tide at Geelong.

Conditions: Similar to yesterday with southerlies keeping the water still, but vis wasn’t as good.

Visibilty: 5m

Water Temp: 20c

Bottom Time: 44 minutes

Max Depth: 3.6m

Air usage: 35bar/500psi

SAC: ???? litres/min

Details: I had two tanks, both with 500psi (35bar). It just seemed like a waste to fill them, so i tried to squeeze a dive each out of them. So back to Steeles Rocks with the fisheye for a tank waster dive.

Camera Details: Tokina 10-17mm , dual SS200 strobes.

Dive Report:

Dive 134 – Steeles Rocks

By pfuller

Feb

Dive Number: 134 12/02/11 13.34 , Steeles Rocks, Portarlington

Wind: 10-15knot SE’s

Tide: 3hrs before 0.16 low tide at Geelong.

Conditions: Very nice..a calm surface, no current and great vis

Visibilty: 8m

Water Temp: 20c

Bottom Time: 129 minutes

Max Depth: 4.1m

Air usage: 170bar/2500psi

SAC: ???? litres/min

Details: I’d just bought an old golf buggy from the op shop, which i modified to fit my tank and all my dive gear in. The plan was to head over to Sorrento on the ferry, hit sorrento pier for slack water and then head back on the ferry. A $20 dive charter. ; ) But after getting down to queenscliffe i soon realised my golf buggy setup wasn’t sturdy enough to carry the 20kg+ including my camera, and i felt breakage was going to be the outcome. So i decided to postpone and wnet to Portarlingtn again. It was a great move, and the vis was great at Steeles Rocks. I’ve been meaning to take a fisheye out here for sometime, since it has prolific sponge growth and an absurd number of Hulafish hanging around. Theres also large salmon schools in the area, but i only had one brief passby on this dive.

Camera Details: Tokina 10-17mm , dual SS200 strobes.

Dive Report:

Dive 133 – Beach 10B

By pfuller

Feb

Dive Number: 133 10/02/11 13.28 , Beach 10B

Wind: 10-15knot NE’s

Tide: 1hr before ebb slack

Conditions: Surface looked great..no swell or chop. The water however was full of sediment and vis was bad. The current was fairly strong, and towards the end of the dive was really moving fast towards Shortlands Bluff.

Visibilty: 2-4m

Water Temp: 20c

Bottom Time: 86 minutes

Max Depth: 10.3m

Air usage: 170bar/2500psi

SAC: ???? litres/min

Details: I wanted to find Friendly Bommie again, but after entering the water and seeing the limited vis, i wasn’t hopeful. The current was also limiting to cover enough ground to stumble onto it. So after swimming out about 200m, we dropped into 10m, and started heading SW. The terrain was small scattered rocks with a lot of weed debris sitting in clumps on the ground. Any fish we came across took off quickly, as we emerged from the bad vis. Chris came across a cuttlefish trying to blend into the weedy flotsam. It was a very dark maroon colouration, trying to camoflague itself, and chris did well to spot it. We continued on in search of some good reef, and finally came across a massive ledge. After strenuous swimming into current i was pretty happy we eventually found something. I’m not sure if this was the same bommie i found last time or not…they’re seems to be a lot of sand movement in this area and i think the bommie isvery changeable in whats is and isn’t exposed. Anyway, so good fish around. First fish i saw was a cowfish which are always good to see. Some massive Morwongs sat into the current under an overhead ledge for protection. Under the ledges some nice big hydriods swaying in the current, and the usual assortment of sponges, gorgonians and reef fish hung under the ledges. Down a little gutter a boarfish came to check me out…a fish i’ve been hoping to see on a shoredive…unfortunately the vis was bad for photography. Another cowfish hung out in the gutter but quickly took off. The current was really nasty by this stage, and we surfaced with a fair bit of air for safety. The current was ripping at the surface towards Shortlands bluff, so by the time we got back to shore we had a fair walk back to the carpark. great adventure diving…but a tough photography dive. I cant recommend the best tide to do this area on, because i really dont understand how the currents work in this area. I just recommend times of low streams around 2-3knots, and possibly on slack..but i dont know really know what slack means here with the eddies created off shortlands bluff.

Camera Details: Tokina 10-17mm , dual SS200 strobes.

Dive Report:

Dive 132 – Steeles Rocks, Portarlington

By pfuller

Feb

Dive Number: 132 06/02/11 17.03 , Steeles Rocks, Portarlington

Wind: 15knot SW’s

Tide: 2hrs before 0.86 high tide at Geelong.

Conditions: St Leonards looked choppy and milky, so we headed around to Portarlington. Water was nice and calm and vis was ok to. A slight southerly current was running towards the end of the dive.

Visibilty: 6-8m

Water Temp: 21c

Bottom Time: 133 minutes

Max Depth: 4.5m

Air usage: 170bar/2500psi

SAC: ???? litres/min

Details: Caught up with Chris for a dive, and we headed out near the most easterly section of steeles rocks. About 20 Ruddy Turnstones were roosting on the rocks on the way out, but took off as we approached. After descending it took us a bit of swimming to get onto the reef that runs out to the north. Once we found it, it was teeming with hulafish, and in amongst one school i came across what i think is a baby Blue-line Goatfish. Other highlights were a sleeping cuttlefish, and a large school of Australian Salmon. I was in a very lazy mood and was just enjoying the dive so didn’t concentrate on photography much. Here’s a few shots though.

Camera Details: Canon 100mm , single SS200 strobes.

Dive Report:

Snorkel At Pt Lonsdale

By pfuller

Feb

02/02/2011 18.30 Pt Lonsdale

Tide: 0.5hr after 0.34 low tide at heads

Wind: Southerly???

Conditions: I was suprised to see that the water was nearly spilling into the pools when i arrived, despite fairly low swell. Water was of good clarity though. I ended up getting a good hour in as the water seemed to subside without innundating.

Bottom Type: rockpools

Bottom Time: 60 minutes

Details: I just got a wet diopter so i wanted to give it a try. Again it was a quiet evening for nudi’s…they just dont seem to like an evening feed lately. I think i saw maybe 3 or 4 species. One was a species i hadn’t seen before, but not all that impressive. I went for a snorkel outside the pools and there were alot of larger fish around, and some smaller gobies, weedfish, baitfish etc. I didn’t expect to see an oil rig when i got out..a surreal experience…it was being shipped out through the heads after repairs.

Camera Details: Canon 100mm , single SS200 strobe + Woody Dioptre.

Nitrox and Mixed Air Calculators

By pfuller

Feb

Just for my interest, i decided to write some online calculators to determine the Maximum Operating Depth (MOD) and Equivalent Air Depth (EAD). I’ve added these as “pages”, so they can be accessed in the header links of the site. But here’s some links to them:

MOD Calculator
EAD Calculator

Dive 131 – Beach 10B – Friendly Bommie

By pfuller

Feb

Dive Number: 131 30/01/11 14.41 , Beach 10B – Friendly Bommie

Wind: 10-15knot N’s

Tide: 10minutes after 0.22 low tide at heads.

Conditions: Nice flat northerly conditions, until the end of the dive where it had turned to SE’s and some surface swell was building. The current was considerable but not unbearable in the water

Visibilty: 10m

Water Temp: 20c

Bottom Time: 118 minutes

Max Depth: 9.7m

Air usage: 200bar/3000psi

SAC: ???? litres/min

Details: The sea was looking nice and calm and i was getting sick of cottage, and wanted to try somewhere new. I was tempted to dive Shortlands Bluff, but the current tides made for fast streams and i was too early for slack. I thought i’d try the carpark between Shortlands Bluff and Cottage. Its marked as Beach 10B, but i actually entered via the next sandy track towards cottage. My explore dives work as follows; swim out for 10 minutes and see where you end up. If its looking promising keep going using the rule of thirds with my air. So i headed out and soon saw a ray/shark that saw me before i saw it. It was either an eagle ray or an angel shark..i didn’t get a good look..or photo. I followed it for a while, but it never settled. It swam across undualting rocky ground with sparse cover in about 5-6m. It progressively got deeper with no change in terrain..no bommies or significant reefs of any sort and i was wondering if i was going to find anything of interest. I then came across some interesting sand dune country, with large barren dunes akin to land dunes, rising from 10-9m up to about 4 m. It was quite a unique terrain…but barely any marine life in the area. I was around 500m out from shore at this point, out to the south west, and the current was getting strong. I started heading back in north easterly, thinking there wasn’t any significant overhangs out there. Then out of no where, a mixed school of fish appeared over some legdes in about 4-5metres. Herring cale were going crazy over the kelp covered tops of the ledges and zebra fish and wrasse circled above. I dropped into a little oasis of great ledges, deep overhangs, gutters and swimthroughs in about 8-9m. The fish were very tame and friendly (hence why i’ve dubbed it Friendly Bommie until i find out otherwise) and large moonlighters were fearlessly just hanging out under an overhang. Lots of LJ’s, bullseyes, a cuttlefish and the star of the show, a cowfish. (i’ve never seen one over this side!) I’m not sure if it was becaus ethe rest of the dive was so dull, but this was some of the best reef in the bay i’ve dived on. But of course, i found this right at the end of the dive with little air left, and my strobe cord was playing up, randomly flashing and not triggering the strobes consistently. So i’ve vowed to try to find this bommie on the next day of calm conditions, and make sure my setup in in good shape.

Camera Details: Tokina 10-17mm , dual SS200 strobes.

Dive Report:

Dive 130 – Ozone Wrecks

By pfuller

Feb

Dive Number: 130 29/01/11 13.36 , Ozone and Dominion Wrecks, Indented Head

Wind: 5-10knot SE’s

Tide: 3hrs after 0.97 high tide at geelong.

Conditions: Light chop of the surface, but generally pretty good. Nice day.

Visibilty: 6-8m

Water Temp: 22c

Bottom Time: 113 minutes

Max Depth: 3.1m

Air usage: 105bar/1500psi

SAC: ???? litres/min

Details: This turned out to be a nice dive. I wasn’t expecting the vis to be any good, and there were kids everywhere jumping off the wreck, so i thought the dive could only be annoying. I decided to explore some of the sheltered areas of the wreck, so i wouldn’t get jumped on. Spent a fair bit of time in the old boilers trying to work with ambient light, and under some of the wreckage where the fish were hiding. The dominion was covered in hincksi algea like curlewis and a pipehore was hanging out in some of it. I also found a speargun which someone had managed to tightly wedge the spear into parts of the wreck.

Camera Details: Tokina 10-17mm , dual SS200 strobes .

Dive Report: