Dive Number: 75 22/08/2010 13.21 The Grotto
Wind: 10-15 knot N.
Tide: 3.5hr after 1.31 high tide at the Heads (12.50 slack)
Conditions: The last couple of weeks has been blowing ave. 30 knot, and lots of rain, and today was the first light wind. The sky was blue and it was generally a nice day, but still a lot of surface chop. Visibility in the water was atrocious! as expected.
Bottom Type: Rocky reef ledges over sand.
Visibilty: 1-2m
Water Temp: 12c
Bottom Time: 44 minutes
Max Depth: 20.6m
Air usage: 185bar/2500psi
SAC: ???? litres/min
Details: There was a break in the windy weather we’ve been having so i thought i’d jump on a boat with dive vic. The two options were Foggy Reef or The Grotto. I’d already dived The Grotto so i jumped on the Foggy Reef boat. On the way out i got told that i’d have to switch boats, because one group was going to 30m and the other was OW training so i had to buddy up with someone of the Grotto boat. So a boat change in the middle of PPB made things a bit more interesting.
Camera Details: Tokina 10-17mm , single SS200 strobe
Dive Report: I ended up being buddied up with Cheri (a fellow photographer) and one of the dive vic instructors, so it was good to have a group that would take it nice and slow…especially in 1-2m vis. On descent, we dropped into about 20m straight off. I couldn’t see the bottom until we hit it, and we spooked a baby port jackson shark who took off pretty quick. Not long after working our way along a ledge, our ‘guide’ spotted a Draughtboard shark under a ledge. Excellent spotting in the crap vis! I moved in closer for a shot, and it didn’t like me so close, so i backed off to give it a bit of space. It decided to take off and left the only was it could…in between me and Cheri.
The rest of the dive was fairly uninspiring critter wise. The bad vis made fish spook easily, and the colours weren’t all that vivid in the low light murkiness, so i didn’t take a lot of photos. They probably came out better than i expected though cosidering how milky the water was. Here’s a few from the dive.
