Saturday morning we zipped down to the Mornington peninsular and called in on the fabulously named Doctor Fear (an s.c.u.b.a. supplier with all the dots) to drop off my faulty light. We picked up some native tree-seedlings (tea tree, moonah and sheoaks) and had a working-bee.
And after reviving ourselves with sausages and baby-cuddles we slipped (well, more like wrenched) ourselved into wetsuits in time for dusk and slipped under the Portsea Pier. Fabulous night dive despite me being slightly under-weighted, Ross being under-neoprened, and us both being a little under-lit. We saw several octopus, an eel and, incredibly, a paper nautilus!!!!
It must have been the luxury of a hot shower and a real bed that made us jump up in the morning ready for more… Ross went for a fly over the sand-dunes and I went for a coast walk.
The night dive was so shallow that we made a second dive, this time under the Rye Pier, on the same tank after lunch. The water was teaming with baby things, but the highlights were the regal Tasmanian blennies peering out from brightly coloured spongy dens.
We zipped back to Melbourne where I fell asleep instantly for an hour. Feeling slightly dazed, I accompanied Ross, Nick and Robyn over to Matt’s new place where he fed us, and several others, with great cheeses and wines, and ‘La sauce’ (which included four bunnies, a litre of wine and six hours of stove time). Yum. Still, Monday was something of a write-off… I felt sicker and sicker through the day, and by 3pm was vomiting and taking pills for fever and headache. Bleuugh. Some kind of flu-cold-exhaustion thing, it is supposed. Better today though… although a second rest day is needed.