Jun
28
Dive Number: 324 28/06/12 9.55, Whites Beach
Wind: ???
Tide: ???
Conditions: Rain
Visibilty: 8m
Water Temp: 12.0c
Bottom Time: 79minutes
Max Depth: 7.9m
Air usage:
SAC: ???? litres/min
Details: Some of the BSAC crew came down to try to find Victoria Towers. Unfortunately we weren’t able to locate it, but it was still a nice dive. I found a great little cave, and a mutant 4 armed star.
Camera Details: Tokina 10-17mm , SS200 Strobes
Photos:
Jun
24
Dive Number: 323 24/06/12 13.17, Little Governor Reef
Wind: ???
Tide: ???
Conditions:
Visibilty: 8m
Water Temp: 10.4c
Bottom Time: 22minutes
Max Depth: 3.3m
Air usage:
SAC: ???? litres/min
Details: A couple of stars at a quiet little governor reef,
Camera Details: Tokina 10-17mm , SS200 Strobes
Photos:
Jun
23
Dive Number: 322 23/06/12 16.20, St Leonards Reef(South)
Wind: ???
Tide: ???
Conditions: Some current and strong wind swell
Visibilty: 6m
Water Temp: 10.8c
Bottom Time: 44minutes
Max Depth: 4.0m
Air usage:
SAC: ???? litres/min
Details: It was very quiet out of St Leonards today..a few swimming anemones and thats about it.
Camera Details: Tokina 10-17mm , SS200 Strobes
Photos:
Jun
21
Dive Number: 321 21/06/12 9.57, Victoria Towers Wreck
Wind: ???
Tide: ???
Conditions: Overcast
Visibilty: 8m
Water Temp: 12.8c
Bottom Time: 61minutes
Max Depth: 7.1m
Air usage:
SAC: ???? litres/min
Details: A good dive on Vic towers. I found some large fragments of ceramics on this dive.,,possible some type of large vase or bed pan.
Camera Details: Tokina 10-17mm , SS200 Strobes
Photos:
Jun
17
Dive Number: 320 17/06/12 16.36, St Leonards Pier
Wind: ???
Tide: ???
Conditions: Bleak day
Visibilty: 8m
Water Temp: 11.6c
Bottom Time: 39minutes
Max Depth: 3.3m
Air usage:
SAC: ???? litres/min
Details: An ordinary day, and i had some strobe problems, so just a few ambient light wide angle shots.
Camera Details: Tokina 10-17mm , SS200 Strobes
Photos:
Jun
16
Dive Number: 319 16/06/12 14.20, Ant Spit
Wind: ???
Tide: ???
Conditions: Surgey and dark
Visibilty: 8m
Water Temp: 13.2c
Bottom Time: 27minutes
Max Depth: 13.2m
Air usage:
SAC: ???? litres/min
Details: I’d heard of some nice areas around Ant Spit but its a big area. We didn’t sound up anything of great interest, so just decided to jump in at a random spot. Not much chop and only a couple of pics.
Camera Details: Tokina 10-17mm , SS200 Strobes
Photos:
Jun
16
Dive Number: 318 16/06/12 12.20, Charlemont Reef
Wind: ???
Tide: ???
Conditions:
Visibilty: 8m
Water Temp: 13.2c
Bottom Time: 34minutes
Max Depth: 16.5m
Air usage:
SAC: ???? litres/min
Details: Chris just got a new drysuit so we sounded out some reef on Charlemont Reef and went for a dive. Not a lot of structure or interest at this site, but Chris was loving the joys of drysuit diving…until he found the dodgey zip.
Camera Details: Tokina 10-17mm , SS200 Strobes
Photos:
Jun
13
Dive Number: 317 13/06/12 12.15, The Arches, Port Campbell
Wind: ???
Tide: ???
Conditions: Overcast but flat.
Visibilty: 8m
Water Temp: 13.6c
Bottom Time: 38minutes
Max Depth: 22.5m
Air usage:
SAC: ???? litres/min
Details: In hindsight we probably should have done a second dive on the wreck, but we opted to dive “The Arches” a bit closer to Port Campbell. This was a large hole with a maze like system of gullies and swim through arches linking up the gullies. A nice dive, but the Loch Ard had an unquestionable mystique that made it a more unique and unmissable dive when down this part of the world.
Camera Details: Tokina 10-17mm , SS200 Strobes
Photos:
Jun
13
Dive Number: 316 13/06/12 11.20, The Wreck of the Loch Ard
Wind: ???
Tide: ???
Conditions: Overcast but flat.
Visibilty: 8m
Water Temp: 12.0c
Bottom Time: 49minutes
Max Depth: 20.8m
Air usage:
SAC: ???? litres/min
Details: We got down to Port Campbell about 9 o’clock and unloaded our gear at the boat ramp.The cove was near motionless and the view out to sea between the cliffs looked just as flat.
We jumped on board the charter and headed out towards Muttonbird Island, passing jaw dropping sandstone cliff faces that led the eye to the 12 apostles on the eastern horizon.
It really set a dramatic stage for diving, and it possibly set my expectations a little too high on what lay below the surface.
On arriving at Mutton Bird island, conditions were pretty much as good as it gets with little backwash off the cliffs. We descended and followed the dropoff scanning the seabed for signs of the wreck. The wall was characterised by large car-sized boulders (chunks of fallen cliff) that staggered outways from the cliff face down to about 20metres. After about 15-20minutes with no sign of the wreck, we were starting to get worried that this dive on Victorias most famous wreck, was just going to turn into a reef dive. But thankfully we started spotting some parallel forms lying across the reef, and then the broken up hull came into view. The wreckage seemed to start around 16m and extended seaward into around 20m. This was the area we explored anyway, which had scatterings of intact bottles, fragments of ceramics, and i even found a well formed barrell… all amongst broken up sections of the hull. Finding bottles with their necks fully intact suprised me for such a high energy environment. From descriptions of the wreck extending from 10m out to 22m and with the anchor out to sea even further, we only touched on a small section of the wreck. Our surface interval was a tour of Loch Ard Gorge and viewing of the beach that the survivors of the wreck scrambled onto. Our boat passed under grand sea arches and through amazing chasms along the way making for a great way to spend a surface interval.
Camera Details: Tokina 10-17mm , SS200 Strobes
Photos:
Jun
10
Dive Number: 315 10/06/12 14.20, Rye Pier
Wind: ???
Tide: ???
Conditions:
Visibilty: 8m
Water Temp: 12.2c
Bottom Time: 76minutes
Max Depth: 5.4m
Air usage:
SAC: ???? litres/min
Details: I made my second visit to the spidercrabs and it was a vastly different experience to the first and really put the puzzle peices together.
My first visit was when the aggregation was at its peak. Of the 10’s of thousands of spidercrabs present that day, i only spotted a few of decent size. The majority were small with a dark brown body, and these were the spidercrabs forming stacks on top of each other. Most spidercrabs on this day were fairly inactive and almost appeared to be resting or sleeping.
On my visit yesterday, numbers had decreased significantly, there were still some of these small, brown shelled crabs around, but the majority where large red/orange shelled crabs. These large crabs were very active, “marching” en-masse within the L-shaped confines of the pier with some climbing up the pylons and over the thousands of “brown-shelled” carapace’s littering the area under the pier.
It all started making sense when i saw one of these small-brown spider crabs actually going through the moulting process and seeing a newly formed red-shelled ‘adult’ spider crab about to emerge from the rear of the brown-shell.
It dawned on me that the intial aggregation were all pre-moult crabs that had come together to provide a ‘safety in numbers’ approach to sheding their old shell and emerging as a new ‘adult’ spidercrab. This process involved a period on non-activity where they were rendered immobile as they formed a new shell within the confines of thier old one, and then had to emerge from their old shell in a gelatenous, soft shelled form. All this makes an individual vunerable to predation, however, as a spider crab undergoing this process, you’re much safer if you can perfrom this process in the bottom layer of a stacked mass of spider crabs. The species as a whole has a much better chance of continuation if they can at least get a few thousand individuals safely through the moult process and into a hardened adult form. Of course, the crabs probably dont have such altruistic goals. Each individual wants to be in the centre of the bottom layer of the stack. In fact, its not the bottom layer of the stack that is the ultimate position, its the centre of the group…e.g. not on the outside flanks. This leads to stacking because all the crabs are climbing over each other trying to get into the centre. (or a positon that is away from the outside edges of the group.)
All the above is well documented and has been said before(and i’ve probably got some assumptions and terminolgies wrong), but to see these two distinct periods of the same event with my own eyes, has really made it all the more amazing, so i’d thought i’d share my experience.
Camera Details: Tokina 10-17mm , SS200 Strobes
Photos:
Jun
10
Dive Number: 314 10/06/12 14.20, Rye Pier
Wind: ???
Tide: ???
Conditions:
Visibilty: 8m
Water Temp: 12.2c
Bottom Time: 76minutes
Max Depth: 5.4m
Air usage:
SAC: ???? litres/min
Details: I made my second visit to the spidercrabs and it was a vastly different experience to the first and really put the puzzle peices together.
My first visit was when the aggregation was at its peak. Of the 10’s of thousands of spidercrabs present that day, i only spotted a few of decent size. The majority were small with a dark brown body, and these were the spidercrabs forming stacks on top of each other. Most spidercrabs on this day were fairly inactive and almost appeared to be resting or sleeping.
On my visit yesterday, numbers had decreased significantly, there were still some of these small, brown shelled crabs around, but the majority where large red/orange shelled crabs. These large crabs were very active, “marching” en-masse within the L-shaped confines of the pier with some climbing up the pylons and over the thousands of “brown-shelled” carapace’s littering the area under the pier.
It all started making sense when i saw one of these small-brown spider crabs actually going through the moulting process and seeing a newly formed red-shelled ‘adult’ spider crab about to emerge from the rear of the brown-shell.
It dawned on me that the intial aggregation were all pre-moult crabs that had come together to provide a ‘safety in numbers’ approach to sheding their old shell and emerging as a new ‘adult’ spidercrab. This process involved a period on non-activity where they were rendered immobile as they formed a new shell within the confines of thier old one, and then had to emerge from their old shell in a gelatenous, soft shelled form. All this makes an individual vunerable to predation, however, as a spider crab undergoing this process, you’re much safer if you can perfrom this process in the bottom layer of a stacked mass of spider crabs. The species as a whole has a much better chance of continuation if they can at least get a few thousand individuals safely through the moult process and into a hardened adult form. Of course, the crabs probably dont have such altruistic goals. Each individual wants to be in the centre of the bottom layer of the stack. In fact, its not the bottom layer of the stack that is the ultimate position, its the centre of the group…e.g. not on the outside flanks. This leads to stacking because all the crabs are climbing over each other trying to get into the centre. (or a positon that is away from the outside edges of the group.)
All the above is well documented and has been said before(and i’ve probably got some assumptions and terminolgies wrong), but to see these two distinct periods of the same event with my own eyes, has really made it all the more amazing, so i’d thought i’d share my experience.
Camera Details: Tokina 10-17mm , SS200 Strobes
Photos:
Jun
9
Dive Number: 312 09/06/12 14.20, Prince George Bank – North Stick
Wind: Westerlies
Tide: ???
Conditions:
Visibilty: 8m
Water Temp: 12.2c
Bottom Time: 76minutes
Max Depth: 5.4m
Air usage:
SAC: ???? litres/min
Details: I’ve started to scope out all the reefs on Prince George Bank for fall back dives when the winds are westerly and the swell is too much for anywhere on the coast/heads. Hyeonji joined me for exploring around the area and there was some nice colourful reef. Fishlife was again low with the cold water, but a nice little dive.
Camera Details: Tokina 10-17mm , SS200 Strobes
Photos:
Jun
2
Dive Number: 312 02/06/12 14.22, Chimney Rock
Wind: ???
Tide: ???
Conditions:
Visibilty: 6m
Water Temp: 14.0c
Bottom Time: 43minutes
Max Depth: 23.1m
Air usage:
SAC: ???? litres/min
Details: A dark, surgey, eerie, scary dive at Chimney rock…it was great! :D
Camera Details: Tokina 10-17mm , SS200 Strobes
Photos:
