There was also an absolute plague of jellyfish in some parts of the bay (several huge ones – 25cm plus – every metre!). Ross briefly swum in a less dense patch and took some gorgeous photos, but we went to a more sheltered rocky reef (where it was easier to avoid being stung) for a longer swim. It’s nice to be in the sea without a tank sometimes :)

We were diving at Rye …

… (which we had meant to do as a night dive the previous evening but TORRENTIAL rain made setting up equipment a less fun prospect, not to mention the stormwater drains gushing out bacteria and sediments. There was so much rain our usual campside was under 15cm of water that was having hard time sinking into the parched, sandy, hydrophobic soils. Instead we took refuge in the house and drank tea and ate cookies! But, in this town, you don’t complain about rain ;) especially not when you planted 40 saplings last spring :)

…ANYWAY, about 5 or 10 m from the pier we come across this cutey:

It’s a juvenile Port Jackson shark. The poor thing was tethered by the hook stuck in it’s mouth. I guess the line broke or it was cut too far up because a swivel further up the line had caught on some weed… Ross has a go at removing the hook (we’d forgotten at that point about the barbs by their dorsal spines, but he didn’t get spiked so all was well!). He couldn’t get the hook out but he broke the line so the poor thing could swim away… it didn’t fight much and it swum away quite slowly; I hope the hook rusts out soon and that it hadn’t been too weakend…

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 enough to launch 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 returned 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 good-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 returned home empty handed!

The questions that we ask ourselves now are…

1) when can we get back to dive ‘the arches‘ (yes, we did find a charter service… or a man with a boat and a phone number who’ll take folks out to fish or whatever…)

2) when can we go and travel though all those arches and tunnels and between those giant stacks on wee boats

3) given that the oh-so-powerful sea has made blow-holes that cut so very very deep into the land, will it ever be calm enough again to do these things?

Methinks I may have seen the ‘shipwreak coast’ one of its subdued days making these wants seem so very, very possible, nay simple… not to mention the presence of fur seals and their ever so slightly toothy predators…. hmmm… Watch this space… and if not then we could do this?

We camped Saturday night at Parker Hill in Great Otway National Park and on Sunday stopped at Lorne to fish on the way home. No fish, but two squids. One so very very big that Jane and Andy will come to help eat it tonight. Mmmm, stuffed squid…

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.

Blue-ringed octopus, Rye Pier

Thursday night (Dec 29th) Ross and I picked up dive gear and headed down to the beach for the New Year. We did a couple of fantastic dives. Friday night we dived under the Rye Pier and saw heaps of seahorses, dumpling squid and sand octopus and also, the highlight of the week, a blue ringed octopus. The next day (New Year’s eve) was extremely hot and after I exausted myself trying on a few new semi-dry suits, we snorkled, jumped off the pier, wathed the rich kids with their jet-skis and lazed on the beach until it was time to go back to the beach house and drink champagne ;)
New Years Day rained hard all afternoon, but we spent an hour on the Portsea reef, where the highlight was a stargazer that wriggled its way to freedom from under Ross’s knee allowing us to get a couple of good photos!

Stargazer, Portsea

I also got a chance to try out my Christmas present (a rod and squid jigs). We caught three squid. The first two we brought onto Portsea Pier at the exact same moment… although Ross’s emptied its ink-sack onto his face before it hit the deck!! We stuffed the squid at home the next day with dilled rice and baked them in chopped tomatoes Greek style. Yum.

In the afternoon we headed past the town of Cowes (I think rather comically named after Cowes of the Isle of Wight, which sits in the Solent, off the south coast of Britain, in much the same way that Phillip Island sits south of mainland Victoria) and down to the south-west tip to sea the fur sea colony that lazes on the rock outcrops known as ‘The Nobbies’. The seals were eclipsed by the hundreds of baby seagulls nestled among the spring flowers being fed by their loud, red-beaked parents and attempting to fledge their fluffy little wings. Peeking beneath the boardwalks and in burrows along the coast revealed Phillip Islands star attractions, the little or fairy penguins. I took the photo opportunity since cameras are forbidden at the viewing centre.

At sunset the penguins make their way in large quantities from the ocean to the land where they mate, preen and rest until sunrise when they go back to fishing. The penguin visitors centre has viewing platforms on the beach and raised walkways on the shallow cliffs so that the path of the penguins are not disturbed and they go about their business, seemingly oblivious of the crowds of tourists. After the ‘show’ we left the island and stopped for dinner at San Remo and then drove to Inverloch to camp. Early in the morning, after the infamously abrupt camp owner had been paid we continued to Wilson’s Prom.

Lucy, who served us at Tidal River visitors centre was a little reluctant to let us try the 52.5 km circuit with only two night of camping (11.9 the first day, 24 the second day, 16.6 the last day) and urged us to add the third night but, after reassurances that we were fit and experienced, we set off south on that trip-plan. We passed though much land recovering from the fire. It was nice to see so much new growth and so many spring flowers. Even compared to our visit in May, things looked much less scorched. Most spectacular was the thousands of white irises and flower spikes of Xanthorrhoea. We lunched at halfway hut after Lucy sped passed us in a four-wheel drive smiling at our toil and made the camp on the banks of Roaring Meg early enough to walk down to South point, 3.5km further south. The wind was loud, and roared far more than Meg, who barely meeped! The next morning we set off along the path to the lighthouse and found land that the fire had not reached. We saw a lovely long tiger snake sunning itself on the path before it clouded over and thunder and lightening lit up the sky. Luckily not much rain fell, except at Waterloo bay where we had a wet snack. We reached Refuge Cove early enough to cook in the light although we were weary from 24km of undulating hills. The last day was fine and we lazed on the beaches at Refuge and Sealers Coves on the way back to Tidal River. After a hot shower we left and headed east.

We dined on flatheads in beer batter and chips at Port Welshpool and then drove until we were tired. We turned the car onto a dirt road looking for a space to pitch our tent for the night. The road split and became ‘bombing range road’… it sounded foreboding but we pulled in anyway; although we shifted along a little after realizing we were in front of a gate with a sign that read ‘wild bird reserve, private land, shooting prohibited’. The last bit cheered me and we slept soundly.

After breakfast, during which clouds of mosquitoes descended upon us, we continued east, crossing the Snowy River and stopping for groceries (and bite-soothing cream!!). We reached Wingan Inletin the Croajingolong National Park in time to snorkel for abalone… well Ross snorkled and I filmed! That night was a great feast of abalone with lemon and sherry, followed by lamb rogan josh and cabernet, followed by pfeffernusse and, rather oddly so far from its origin, warm Norfolk punch. Entertainment came from discouraging the very pesky possums with water and large sticks. The next day, finding the area totally deserted, we collected mussels and ate oysters, read on the beach and watched the eagles and sea lions. The mussels made a fine red-coconut curry that night and more oysters made great ‘appies’!The following morning we headed west to Cape Conran. After pitching our tent we set out with our meager fishing equipment (a hand line) and searched for a ‘likely spot’. We had a few failed attempts with a mussel, getting sprayed by the surf on a rock outcrop before venturing around the point to Salmon rocks. After conceding the only jetty to two guys who spent more time at the back of their truck than with their lines, we tried our luck with a limpet (as bait), casting from a flat rock into a surf washed deep pool, and succeeded in landing… a starfish. We pried the pesky creature from our bait and recast and pulled out a small but perfect little fish. Another starfish and I landed another lovely, large fish. Since neither fish swallowed the bait, both fish and both starfish were caught with the same little limpet!

With our proud catch we returned to camp, finding some lovely orchids by the path. We gathered wood and lit a fire on which we grilled the fish and ate them with a mushroom risotto. The next day, our last full day, we thought we’d try the lucky line again. We set out to the Yeerung river, which is the colour of milkless black tea, and is separated at its mouth from the blue ocean by a narrow sand bar except at high tide. Beside the river were some fine boulders, which I climbed until it was too warm. We gathered worms and some ugly little maggoty creatures and fished for hours but to no avail.  The fishing may have been pointless, but I got inspriration for a beatiful painting :) Finally we gave up and swam in the clear brown water and took a walk to the Yeerung river gorge instead. The camp that night was much busier and it was the Saturday of Melbourne Cup long weekend. Sunday morning we left after breakfast and drove west. We stopped at Buchan Caves and took a tour of the beautiful royal caves.

After the caves it was time to make the long drive back. We stopped at Lakes Entrance for lunch and also to buy scallops to take as an offering to David, whose house we stopped at for Gwen’s birthday dinner. We needed to shower before we were fit for the dinner table, which was piled with yummy roast lamb followed by an array of desserts and birthday cake.