nicolaoutdoors » Port-Phillip-Bay

Breathing underwater again

nicola — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:42:21 +0000

It seemed like forever since our last dive. A winter of snowplay and a spring of climbing had somehow almost erased the memory how wonderfully relaxing floating underwater looking at fish can be. We had a nice, leisurely dive at Flinders on Saturday. We only had half a tank of air left from last season, but it was plenty. Later, we dropped our tanks in for a service, ready for a summer of diving adventures :) Being ‘tankless’ on Sunday but still beside the beautiful, still and warm ocean, we kayaked from Sorrento to Portsea, peeking in at the millionaires bayside houses and snorkeled. My cuts and abrasions from climbing all healed up in the salt water and I remembered how special the ocean is. Sadly, while having lunch close to Point Franklin, we saw a group of people spear a medium sized ray and drag it ashore, still alive, to taunt it with their spear tips and throw rocks at it until it finally gave up thrashing around and lay black and glistening on the bright, wet sand.

Underwater Christmas

nicola — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 03:43:14 +0000

Juvenile Fish (click image for more)

A few photos from recent dives.

And, since I received a new dive light for Christmas,
a 2 minute video of some of the wonderful creatures that swim about at night!

Nudibranch Wonderland

nicola — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 03:38:11 +0000

The first two dives of the season! A few weeks ago now but I hadn’t got around to getting them online as I was too busy identifying and playing with them.

Blairgowrie is nudibranch wonderland. Practically every time we dive there, I see a species I haven’t seen before. This is good because nudibranchs are some of my favourite things!

One nudi, two nudi, three nudi, four …. Click on any of the pics or HERE to go through to the gallery, where you can see them bigger and also see crabs and seahorses, worms and rays and all the other amazing things :)

Snorkel with Jellies

nicola — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 02:56:09 +0000

Catostylus mosaicus, Mordialloc, Mar 2008

This weekend was really warm (around 38C). Sunday moring, we decided sea breezes would be best and went for a fishing (with snorkeling to cool off) trip with Ross’s brother out on the bay. We had (mostly) pretty exciting fishing and landed several snapper but all were just slightly too small for keeping. We ended up staying out on the water all day until clouds started to come in around 4:30/5 ish.

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 :)

Northen Pacific Sea Stars at Mornington

nicola — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 02:30:23 +0000

Norther Pacific Sea Star

On Sunday we went diving at Mornington, a smallish town and nameskae of the Mornington Peninsula. The coast there is pretty. Underwater, conditions were average. There was still a lot of suspended material in the water, maybe from the strong northerlies last week. We descended just close to stern of the enormous Skandia ‘Wild Thing’, Winner of Line Honours in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race 2003, Overall Winner of Hamilton Island Race Week 2004 and China Coast Regatta 2004 etc., etc. She is 30m long with a draft of 5.2m, meaning that where she now sits she is only just clear of the bottom.

Close by, and almost up to the good diving spots, the silty flats were almost covered with the invading Northen Pacific Sea Star. These voracious predators eat everything in their path leaving the sea-floor barren behind them. They’ve been working their way across the bay since their arrival some time ago in (probably) ballast water or fishing nets. In places they were so thick that hardly anything else was visible.

Wreck of the Eliza Ramsden

nicola — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 02:19:36 +0000

The Eliza Ramsden was only one year old when it ran aground in 1875 on Corsair Rock, Point Nepean Reef. In its short career, it had made only one complete voyage from England to Melbourne, on to Boston and then back to England. Leaving Port Phillip Bay she struck hard against Corsair Rock. The ebb tide swung the ship around on its side where it wedged firmly on the reef. The ship’s lifeboats were made ready in case the vessel broke up. The sails were taken in and blue lights and rockets were fired to signal for assistance. A lifeboat left Queenscliff at 9.00pm. As it pulled up alongside the Eliza Ramsden, the Superintendent observed the damage to the vessel. Concerned that the boat was sufficiently damaged and would drift off the reef and sink, he ordered the crew and Captain to board their lifeboats and abandon ship. Early next morning Captain Steuart arranged with the Master of the Warhawk tug to return to the Eliza Ramsden to see if the ship could be towed off the reef at flood tide. As they made their way out to Point Nepean Reef, they were stopped by local fisherman who said the boat had already floated off the reef and was drifting out towards South Channel. The fishermen had boarded the vessel to try and steer it towards Queenscliff but had not been successful as the ship’s rudder was severely damaged. By the time the tug reached the Eliza Ramsden, it was too late. The vessel had taken water and had settled on the sea floor at thirteen fathoms with only its top gallant masts above the water. As a warning to other vessels, day and night lights were fixed to the masts, although they were eventually replaced by a wreck buoy to mark the site. As shipping increased, the Eliza Ramsden became a navigational hazard and in the 1960s its masts were blown-up with explosives. This is what the wreck lookes like now:

Wreck of the Eliza Ramsden

She now lies in 18m of water and is a beautiful dive. Unfortunately, the times that she is accessible are limited. She lies in the shipping channel, an area of great current execpt for short 30 minute windows where the tides change and the water is ‘slack’. Secondly, access to the channel is limited by incoming and outgoing ships. Divers are at the mercy of Melbourne Port Authority who only give a definite ‘all clear’ 1 hour in advance. This is was not our first attempt at this wreck; previously shipping had prevented us and we were forced elsewhere. Saturday, however, we were lucky and had a beautiful dive.

The sad side of fishing

nicola — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 01:17:13 +0000

I enjoy fishing but Sunday morning I saw some of the side-effects and I didn’t feel so good about it.

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:

Juvenile Port Jackson Shark, caught on a hook

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…

Visitors

nicola — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 01:10:41 +0000

It must have been a good weekend because at breakfast this morning I couldn’t bring to mind ANY of my tasks or deadlines or ‘things to do’ for Monday :) Work last week was tough for both me and Ross so we deserved to switch off our computers and our minds for 48 hours.

So what did we do? Climbing Friday night. Market (very) early Saturday morning. Then I did some painting (sorry not finished yet so I can’t post it) and waited for our house guests, Mike and Audrey, to arrive from the Arapiles. We headed over to (my work friend) Noriko’s for a party (which turned out so well, there was good food, Japanese liquor and dancing :)

Sunday we all went down to the Portsea. Ross and I dived Portsea Hole. I experimented with taking wide angle shots, which I only usually do on shallow dive because visibility is often better, and when there is some kind of man-made structure. I think they turned out OK.

There were also walks on the beach, kangaroo, red wine, Trampoline, cookies & chatting. Hooray weekends. … of course now I am at work and Mike and Audrey are on their way to the Australian climbing festival.

Dive Victoria

nicola — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 00:50:46 +0000

The weekend was tightly & precisely planned around shoe-buying and working on Saturday and a slack-water dive and home, shower and change for evening dinner engagement on Sunday. So, when Martina called on Saturday evening to attempt to pursuade us to dive from the University club boat rather than the charter boat we had booked, I wasn’t inclined to change my mind (from experience I know days out with the club can become elongated, tiresome and subject to last minute changes).

But, when waiting in a 6mm black neoprene dive-suit in rapidly elevating summer temperatures for the boat to arrive on time to dive slack water, I was almost ready to take up Martina’s offer and jump onto the club boat (present) and screw the charter (not present). Eventually it got there. No, we couldn’t dive the wreck we wanted ( The Eliza Ramsden, sunk 1875) since a ship was coming in (she lies in the shipping channel and diving requires no shipping for an hour either side, which is never known in advance). We would dive ‘kelp-beds reef’ instead. But first, a trip across the bay to let people out (who were somewhat pissed, having been on the boat for 5.5 hours at that point), pick people up, get to the site. etc. etc. and so on etc. Yawn.

On the way to the site a radio message came in of sharks (not the kind you’d really want to get too close to, either) not too far away. These sharks were in the back of my mind, and sometimes the front, until we got back on the boat. Which turned out to be later than I expected. Somehow we went in the good direction, found the reef, had a good dive and everyone else (18 of them) milled around in the shallows. We got in fast, but being furthest from the boat and in current were furthest from the boat and sat on the surface for over 15 mins, I guess (during which time sharks were most definately at the front of my mind, ‘ ooh, i saw something… no I think it had flippers, must be a seal’ etc.). before being picked up.

There was one final bit of excitement when, on the trip back to dock, we came across this vessel (pic below)being circled by a man on a jet-ski who swore it was the right way up not 20 mins earlier. One of our divers jumped back in to look for passengers but saw none and reported the boat was on anchor. The skipper radioed it in. I wonder what happened to the people… definately not a place a person would anchor and leave a boat….

Dolphin Poo

nicola — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 00:42:42 +0000

♦ look, look they’re coming right beneath us!
♥ oh, I love dolphins so much , they make everybody happy :)
♦ ooo, they’re so close I can see it’s eye! Look, it’s eye!
♥ it’s so exciting! :) look at the tails come right out they’re diving down!!
♦ ooo, did that one just …..?
♥ eeew, it did poos!
♦ it’s all mustard slushies
♥ I guess you know you’ve had a close dolphin encounter when you see its poos!

This was also the weekend for dive accidents. A man died in the bay, another boat broke down and our club boat ran out of fuel in the rip and had to get towed. I’m glad we decided to kayak instead.