Saturday we did a shore dive at Rye pier with Louis and Elanor. Just a quick dive to check that my ears were behaving properly after the month-long sinus infection from hell (well, a storm drain actually, but whatever).
After, we launched the ‘Silver Swan’ (David’s tinny) and headed out into the bay. After some delicate manuevering we got our tanks on and sploshed (more of a sidewards roll than anything else) into the water, somehoe without capsizing David and the boat. We hand-over-handed down the anchor line onto a soft, bumpy, silty moonscape. Not much to see… not much except SCALLOPS. Every couple of metres was a SCALLOP. We made an L-shaped course and picked them up until Ross said ‘no more’ by vigerously waving his hand over the bag opening (I think they got quite heavy!) Didn’t see much else… a few rays, a phallic ascidian, one lone dark red nudibranch and giant ugly spider crab dragging a scallop firmly clamped on one leg (hee hee). Getting back into the Silver Swan was much easier – we passed up weights, scallops, buoy and tanks to David then did the seal impression up onto the bow and in. Just as Ross was clambouring in, David landed a barracoota! We then lifted the anchor and fished for a while longer. In the end we kept six flathead and two baracoota, and threw back a bunch of undersize snaper, a beautiful mackeral and some smaller flatheads.
Back at David’s we shucked the scallops. 107! Dinner for Saturday and then some! They were yummy in white-wine and garlic with pasta :) Sunday night, we ate the fish. Hurrah for the sea.