nicolaoutdoors

Thursday we packed the car to the brim with camping and diving things and drove down to Queenscliff. After a stop to remove a huge, ghastly spider from the dashboard and another for our favourite bevarages in Geelong, we set up the lovely new tent, telephoned Agnes to find out what time to meet at the dock and crawled into our sleeping bags to finish the final chapters of Yasunari Kawabata’s ‘Thousand Cranes’.

Good Friday morning we met up with 11 other MUUC members and debated the latest weather warnings and webcam shots of the rip.  It was decided that this was the best chance of getting to dive sites outside of the heads and so one boat set off for the 26m sub and the other (ours) for Castle Rock. The heads were smooth but outside there was a huge swell. We anchored and I rolled backwards off the side. A little water flooded my mask and while I removed it the surface current swept me back… it took all of my energy to swim to the anchor line, which was pulled rigid in the swell. The current probably would have abated below the surface but the surge would have been immense and the visibility poor, so I struggled back on board and we returned to the relative protection of the bay to dive Pope’s Eye instead.

Back at the dock we heard that only four of the six had made it down to the sub and those that had could only rest in the surge that swept them halfway along the wreck and back again every few minutes. A strong wind warning came over the radio … then several heavy showers. Whilst hot chips for lunch were being bought,  the afternoons’ dives were called off and the boats taken out of the water. Even Saturday seemed unlikely.

We returned to the campsite for hot showers and then took shelter in the pub. Beer and an open fire, followed by a seafood buffet to cheer us. Friday night was the ultimate test for new tents (thankfully ours passed). Gales and rain pounded us all night and well into Saturday.
Knowing there was no chance of boat-launching with whitecaps all over the bay, we passed the morning trying on new dive-suits, buying a new battery for my dive computer and a new mask for Ross in Geelong.  At lunch we went to St. Leonard’s Pier, the only site protected from the strong south-westerly winds, and found the rest of the gang there having the same thought. We hopped in at the middle platform and swam right along to the wall and back. The visibility was bad, with such bad weather, and there were hundreds of the ‘evil’ introduced starfish.  Also two dead rays, presumably from having taken a fisherman’s hook. My favourite sight on this dive was a school of baby leatherjackets nibbling all the bait from a hook! Of course while I was watching nothing large would go near enough to bite anyway!
We headed back to the dock where the club were hoping that the wind had dropped enought to lauch boats for the afternoon slackwater, but no luck.  We took a walk along the fishing Pier and met ‘SharkBoy who claimed to be staying there all night since the previous night he had landed a 7.5 foot Bronze Whaler…. (I love fishing tales, no matter how tall). We declined to join him and instead retreated to campsite for a hearty chorizo and lentil stew.

Easter Sunday dawned realatively calmly and we met the boats for a slackwater dive on Lonsdale Wall. We descended to about 22m and found a shallow drop-off. We continued down to 27m but found only a shallow sandy slope and a few dispersed roaks with corals and sponges. After a while we went shallower as we were cold and found the bottom of the wall proper. It has been only a few metres away but visibility was poor enough to hide it from us. Still, we had had a good dive. Back on the boat we heard that another diver had retreated shallower earlier and had found several caves full of Port Jackson Sharks. Jealous and cold we retured to the dock.
There was an offer of a second dive that day, but I was too cold and tired. Instead we decided to try our luck with our fishing rods. And it was worth it :) We caught a beatifully sized calamari within half an hour, cleaned it on the beach and stir-fried it in our wok with chilli and lime.

Monday morning we reconvened at the dock and launched the boats to dive the Lonsdale wall at slackwater again and this time we were the lucky ones … We descended on the shot-line to 15m. Dropped over the lip and continued in the direction of the turning tide staying between 18 and 22m. We saw beautiful walls, corals and fish. Eventually we crossed another group of divers who were all crowded around a cave full of Port Jackson Sharks. The visibility was still bad from the changing winds but we managed a few okay shots. We also saw a sea spiders being tossed in the swell. We surfaced a fair way from the boat, inflated out safety-sausage and waited for the pickup.
After lunch the wind swung violently to the north and the boats came out of the water. We considered a shore dive but instead chose to fish… hopefully to take something big home for the freezer. We must have been just half an hour too late as every bucket was full of salmon when we arrived. I had one big, feisty bite that broke the line and then nothing. The fishermen drifted away and we retured home empty handed!