Dive Number: 351 12/09/12 12.08, Charlemont Reef
Wind: 25knot northerlies
Tide: high
Conditions: Northerly Swell off shore pushing the Barwon outflow over Chimney Rock
Visibilty: 5m
Water Temp: 12.4c
Bottom Time: 39minutes
Max Depth: 11.1m
Air usage:
SAC: ???? litres/min
Details: The winds were blowing a fierce northerly today, which had the affect of not only squashing the southerly swell, but creating a northerly offshore wind swell. We headed out in Chimney Rock direction getting sufficiently drenched everytime we hit a wave that showered us in water. As i fiddled around with the GPS the wind was pushing us further out to sea. Once i thought i had the GPS functionable i fired up the motor again and we were joined by a couple of Dolphins riding the bow. This then turned into about 5 dolphins, then quickly 10, and all of a sudden we had 20 dolphins swimming around the boat. I put the boat into nuetral and we watched as the dolphins played around the boat. We geared up in a hope they would stick around and allow us to swim with them, but they were off as soon as we hit the water. An Albatross didn’t seem to mine though..i swam within centimeters of it and it only gave me a slightly baffled look. Back in the boat, we started heading back in, and were again joined by the large pod of dolphins, who were obviously bored and just wanted to play with the boat…not us! I snapped away off the boat and the dolphins passed by without a care. We ended up spending about an hour with them, and eventually decided it was time for a dive. They rode the bow all the way back in again…magic!
Due to the wind, we headed close to shore and the sounder was showing a hole dropping from 10m to 20m. It must have been a sounder glitch since there was no 20m hole. A nice kelpy dive… but dirty vis and surgey. I spent most of it looking at my dolphin pics. ;)
Camera Details: Tokina 10-70mm, SS200 Strobe
Photos:
