First dive in the Quiet Corner area of Ricketts Point, using our inflatable. Not all that much fish life to be seen during the dive - just a few Sweep, Scalyfins, Zebras, Dusky Morwongs, Snapper, Southern Hula fish, and Common Stingarees, and quite a few Toadfish. We'll have to try diving here again at different times of the day, with different tides, to see if that makes a difference.

A short dive to start the season! We saw a couple of Mosaic Leatherjackts and Scalyfins, and lots of Wrasse. Also spotted a Grape Ascidian and a feather duster worm.

Still a bit cool for a long dive, but the visibility was great.

Somewhat murky in spots, but out on the reef the visibility improved quite a biit. We saw a good-sized Flathead, and a single Banjo Shark. There weren't that many Snapper around today, and we only saw only one large Sweep, but there were still some Zebrafish, Old Wives, and Scalyfins to be seen.

We did find a male and female Gobbleguts hiding in a small cave, and I got some good footage of them.

It is getting a bit cooler in the water now, so the dives from this point on will probably get a bit shorter.

The weather was great, as was the forecast, so Kirsty and I took Friday off, and headed down to Rye. Although we were diving pretty much at low tide, conditions at the pier were fantastic. The visibilty varied a bit, but was generally around 8 or 9 metres, which was a massive improvement on our dive at Flinders the week before. There were two large groups of divers coming out of the water as we got there, and they were back in again before we finished our dive, but we only came across them once while we were in the water.

At the pier there were lots of Goatfish, Spiny Leatherjackets and Wrasse, a few Scalyfins and Blennies, and out at the wreck there were a few Zebra fish, and a couple of Cuttlefish under the hull. 

We finally managed to make it out to Elsa's Reef on this dive, although the site now doesn't look anywhere as good as the photos I'd seen of it when it was first in place.

Even murkier than the last dive at Flinders Pier! Very strong surge made this quite a good limited visibility dive.

Saw a few squid, and a large group of Cowfish by the engine block. Only one Weedy Sea Dragon, but several Short Finned Pike. Very easy to get disoriented in all of the weed swirling around, but still good to get into the water with Kirsty again after her trip to England.

Extremely murky conditions on this dive, which perhaps explains why we saw such as large Octopus at the start of the dive. There were a few Weedy Sea Dragons out at the end of the pier in the wreckage from the ferro-cement yacht, and several Cowfish. The engine block was surrounded by Bullseyes again. We saw a solitary Old Wife out on the seagrass meadow to the West of the pier, and several schools of juvenile Leatherjackets.

Not a great dive to introduce Jonathan to diving in cooler water, but he seemed to enjoy it...

On Saturday, 26 March, I did a couple of dives with Stephen Kuipers, off his mate's boat, looking for scallops. There weren't that many around, and most of those that we did find were quite small. There were lots of Stingarees on the bottom, and a few flathead. Visibility on the first dive wasn't fantastic, so we made this a short dive.

We moved up the coast a bit, towards Blairgowrie, for our second dive. Ther were more scallops here, but most were still small. Lots of Comb Jellyfish floating around, and a beautiful Gurnard. The visibility was better here, and the bottom also looked more pristine.

Very cloudy water! Several days of strong Southerlies and some heavy rain reduced the visibility considerably. We started off by seeing a Banjo Shark and a Stingaree, but then the fish life got much harder to find, although we did see Southern Hulafish, Goatfish, Sweep, Old Wives, and quite a few Snapper. We did manage to find a small cave where a number of Leatherjacket species, Scalyfins, Wrasse, Magpie Perch, and some Old Wives seemed to be sheltering. The Snapper were quite inquisitive (or perhaps agressive) today - coming up to us and extending their fins before swimming away from us.

Quite murky in the shallow part of the pier, but the visibility improved as we swam further out. Only saw one Weedy Sea Dragon for the entire dive, but we did see lots of Cowfish and Old Wives. There were a couple of large Smooth Rays hunting around the pier, and a Smooth Stingaree, as well as Fat-Bellied Leatherjackets, Bulls Eyes, Little Weedy Whiting, Mado, Magpie Perch, Silver Bellies, and Dusky Morwong, and also several Pygmy Leatherjackets. Another great dive with Kirsty!

On Sunday, 28 February Kirsty and I did a couple of dives off our sailing dinghy, Kirsty Ann. We were in Rye for a Wooden Boat Association day, and brought along our dive gear to see how easy diving off the boat would be.

The first dive was near the pier. There were lots of comb jellyfish, quite a few pygmy leatherjackets, and a large Short Tailed Ceratasoma nudibranch. The second dive was further along the coast, towards White Cliffs. Visibility wasn't fantastic, and there wasn't really a whole lot to see, apart from more jellyfish.

We found that to get back into the boat it was best to get out of our BCD, clip it onto a line trailing from the boat, and lift it out of the water once we were in the boat. Kirsty Ann is a bit narrow for diving from, but seems OK for just two of us.

After such a great dive here last weekend Kirsty and I decided to come back again, rather than head down to the peninsula.

We were diving on a rising tide, with much less visibility than last week, except in small pockets of the reef where the vis was excellent.

It was quite a different dive to last week. There was still a lot of life, but in most places the fish disappeared as soon as they saw us, hiding in the crevices or heading off across the tops of the reef to other ledges. The only spot where we were able to get close to lots of fish was the same reef as last week.

I saw another Banjo shark - this time not hidden in the weeds, and we also got a glimpse of a school of Yellow Kingfish, just on the edge of visibility. Lots of Sweep, large Leatherjackts, Old Wives, Snapper, Dusky Morwong, and a few small stingrays as well.

This is probably the best dive I've had at Ricketts Point! there was an amazing abundance of life on display - at some points it was like diving in an aquarium.

Kirsty and I saw more more Dusky Morwong than we've ever seen before,  as well as lots of Zebra fish, Moonlighters, Sweep, Old Wives, a variety of Leatherjackets, Magpie Perch, Scalyfins, Snapper, Trevally, and a Banjo Shark.

We went in about an hour after high tide, and had great visibility for most of the dive, varying between 5 and 10 metres. During this dive we tried out our new Submersible Marker Buoy. It took a bit of time to get used to, but I think that we should be able to deploy it now without heading towards the surface in the process.

This was supposed to be a dive on the ex HMAS Canberra, followed by a scallop dive back in the bay, with the RMIT club on Still a Shambles, but when we got in the water off Barwon Heads William's regulators were playing up, so we scrubbed the Canberra dive, and decided to just do the scallop dive, with a borrowed set of regulators.

As we were coming back through the heads we spotted a submersible marker bouy, attached to a diver in rebreather gear. He had been diving on the Lonsdale Bommie, and the strong current had swept him some distance away from his charter boat. We picked him up and we were told that there were others in the water as well. On our way to his boat we spotted another diver, and upon reaching the boat were were told that there were another ten still in the water. We stayed in the area for fifteen minutes or so, spotting the other divers for the charter boat to pick up. The SMBs certainly made it easier to locate the divers - without one the swell would have easily hidden divers any distance away from the boat.

William and I both got a chance to drive the boat, starting the induction process that will allow us to be used as drivers for the club. Once we got to Blairgowrie, we stopped off White Cliffs on a sandbank in about 4 metres of water. Swimming with the slight current, South from the sandbank, we descended along a gentle slope to 15 metres and found lots of scallops. Most were quite small, but there were more than enough large ones for us. Will quickly got the hang of spotting the scallops, and had a great time on this dive.

I was surprised how little large fish life there was under the pie, but the water was seething with tiny fry. We saw lots of Hermit Crabs, a Spider Crab, several Leatherjackets, Flounder, a large Pipe Fish, a Dumpling Squid, nudibranchs and Roughies. We also got to swim under the hull of Notorious, the Caravelle replica that we looked over at Paynesville a couple of years ago. She was tied up at the pier, and was planning on staying there for the weekend. Towards the end of the dive we also swam out to the wreck to the East of the pier, where the water was much clearer.

Another hot day in Rye, so going under the pier was a great idea. Kirsty and I saw lots of young Leatherjackets, a couple of large Horseshoe Leatherjackets, big schools of Red Mullet, lots of Pilchards, and a few Blennies. There was also a big Smooth Stingray cruising around the outside of the pier.

Later in the day William and I did another dive under the pier, this time bringing the GoPro. The Smooth Stingray came to have a good look at us, making a couple of close passes. As with the morning dive, there was lots to see, including a large Sweet Ceratosoma nudibranch.

On the evening of 18 November 1865, SS Penola rammed into SS City of Launceston. The prow of the Penola is still embedded in the starboard side of the City of Launceston's hull. Fortunately, the prow of the Penola broke off, and watertight hatches kept her afloat. All of the City of Launceston's passengers and crew were rescued by the Penola, before the City of Launceston went to the bottom in 22 metres. SS City of Launceston was the first shipwreck to be declared an Historic Shipwreck under Victorian legislation.

This was my first boat dive with the RMIT Underwater Club. Seven of us went to dive on the City of Launceston, as permits had been issued to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the sinking of the ship. We were supposed to dive in November 2015, but weather conditions at the time scrubbed that dive, so we were fortunate to have another opportunity in January. We staggered our dives, to have as few people on the wreck at any one time, both because of the silty conditions, and also because of the need to have someone on board to drive the boat (we weren't allowed to anchor at the wreck site). Denis and I were diving last, so I lent my mask to one of the earlier divers after he lost his over the side, and I finished up diving with Hilary's  mask, with a strap that was too loose for me (the mask came off when I went into the water, and felt like it was going to come off several times during the dive - I should have checked and tightened the strap before I went into the water). As it turns out, when we reached the bottom I found the missing mask in only a few seconds. Visibility wasn't fantastic, but the wreck was great. The lifting aparatus used during the attempt to refloat her is still on the deck, the galley is easy to see, there are still bottles just sitting on the deck, and the prow of SS Penola still protrudes from the hull. Denis tells me that the superstructure has collapsed since he was there 10 years ago, but she is still a very impressive wreck.

We went looking for Weedy Sea Dragons, and found lots of them, and also found even more Cowfish, both Shaw's and the Ornate species. There were two large Smooth Stingrays cruising around the edges of the pier. We saw lots of different species of Leatherjackets, including Pygmies. A great, long, dive in good conditions for Flinders.

Diving with Dive Victoria at Pope's Eye, followed by a snorkle at Chinaman's Hat with Australian Fur Seals. Lots of life at Pope's Eye, and a great variety of species to look at, including blue throated parrot fish, scaly fins (that would attack you if you got too interested in their territory), magpie perch, leatherjackets, ornate cowfish, senator wrasse, old wives, blacktipped bullseyes, sea carp, shaw's cowfish, moonlighters, and a big-headed gurnard perch. As it was a flood tide we only looked at the back of the annulus.