Aussie Diving April 1-15

[Sas]

Hello

What are people up to this month? I started the month with a very long dive at Mornington Pier last night (130mins, I had a bit of air left but I got *really* cold )

The viz was bad (about 2m) and there was current, never had current at the pier before... But even so there was a lot to see and I saw plenty of octopuses and fish. I also saw a cuttlefish in a bit of strife :depressed: It had a squid jig stuck in its mouth and was trying to get it out. It seemed distressed. I wanted to pull it out but it was huge and pissed off so I figured I better not risk it! I hope it can get it out...

I got a few pictures (most had way to much backscatter to be shown in public!):
Common Gurnard Perch - love its pose

Pair of seahorses - not sure how I got no backscatter in this one but I won't complain

Tiny cute seastar with my fingertip for comparison

Curled up White Spot Octopus - few of them around. They seem to be cuttlefish food.

This weekend I am doing an underwater Easter egg hunt! Which should be interesting.

 

[thanksforallthefish]

Nice pics sas ... love the sea horses and the octopus especially.

Looks as tho you need a new pair of gloves ... I really hope you haven't been touching anything down there

 

[Sas]

Nice pics sas ... love the sea horses and the octopus especially.

Thanks!

Looks as tho you need a new pair of gloves ... I really hope you haven't been touching anything down there

Yea for winter I need new ones They've lasted about 100 dives, not sure if this is good value for gloves? Though I have not minded the holes, puts me off touching things underwater for one thing Though fish, I did stand on the sand when getting out of the water and onto a ledge :shocked2: Shhh don't tell the scuba police

 

[thanksforallthefish]

Thanks!



Yea for winter I need new ones They've lasted about 100 dives, not sure if this is good value for gloves? Though I have not minded the holes, puts me off touching things underwater for one thing Though fish, I did stand on the sand when getting out of the water and onto a ledge :shocked2: Shhh don't tell the scuba police

Oh No Sas ... you shouldnt have posted that you are sure to start flame war number 658942254455544544212154545121245454685876446479
with that

 

[Gudge]

We got two dives in today in Lighthouse Bay and I had a few issues with batteries. First up one of the two batteries in my dive computer calls it a day just as I turned it on. This was followed by the batteries in both my strobes died very early in the second dive (maybe I didn't put freshly charged ones in last weekend like I thought :depressed: ). I was using my seldom used 60 macro lens again and managed to get some shots I was happy with during the first dive at least. Here's a few favourites:

Lined Soapfish:

Comet:

Lionfish:

Two Cleaner Wrasse giving a Rankin Cod a good going over:

Threadfin Pearl Perch:

Small shrimp just hanging out:

Tiny moray eel not much bigger than my thumb:

 

[bowlofpetunias]

Thanks!



Yea for winter I need new ones They've lasted about 100 dives, not sure if this is good value for gloves? Though I have not minded the holes, puts me off touching things underwater for one thing Though fish, I did stand on the sand when getting out of the water and onto a ledge :shocked2: Shhh don't tell the scuba police

Great shots Sas the seahorses are stunning... how did you get them to line up so nicely? I agree on the octopus shot as well. You are really getting some nice shots.:blinking:

We got two dives in today in Lighthouse Bay and I had a few issues with batteries. First up one of the two batteries in my dive computer calls it a day just as I turned it on. This was followed by the batteries in both my strobes died very early in the second dive (maybe I didn't put freshly charged ones in last weekend like I thought :depressed: ). I was using my seldom used 60 macro lens again and managed to get some shots I was happy with during the first dive at least. Here's a few favourites:

Lined Soapfish:

Comet:

Lionfish:

Two Cleaner Wrasse giving a Rankin Cod a good going over:

Threadfin Pearl Perch:

Small shrimp just hanging out:

Tiny moray eel not much bigger than my thumb:

As usual the master of understatement Gudge... yeah... I'd be happy with any of those shots too. I love the Comet and the Cleaners at work!

 

[bowlofpetunias]

Well we got a dive in today haven't downloaded the computer so not sure of temp.... but viz was maybe 3m most of it...

Fish found an Angel Shark! I only managed to get three shots off before it shot off! I did get some video as I approached. Fish also found a nice big Wobby.... haven't seen many of them at that site for a while

 

[bowlofpetunias]

I decided to turn the flash on the camera off and just use fish's torch and see what kind of effect I could get... I thought some of them were interesting

I found this tiny octopus in a small crack in the rock.. He was smaller than my thumb... I have included a shot with my finger in for perspective. Had trouble getting my camera to focus on the things since it was so far in the crack!

 

[thanksforallthefish]

Great shots Gudge
I love the comet, the cleaners, the shrimp and the moray

 

[Sas]

I decided to turn the flash on the camera off and just use fish's torch and see what kind of effect I could get... I thought some of them were interesting

Yea good idea, I have not been using my flash all the time now, helps to reduce backscatter. Tiny octopus is adorable.

Great shots Sas the seahorses are stunning... how did you get them to line up so nicely?

They did not stay like that for long. That was the first shot I took off them but the flash obviously disturbed them as one decided to hang upside down after that with its back to me

Gudge, as usual your shots are stunning

I got out for three dives yesterday and one was to find Easter Eggs (a club had an Easter Egg hunt on) planted around the Ozone wreck. Different coloured eggs (they were normal hard-boiled eggs that had been painted) meant different prizes however whoever painted them had used water soluable paint! So, all the colours came off underwater Anyway, they shared out the chocolate equally so I did not miss out We got in first and found at least a dozen eggs but we could only take two each. We spent about 90mins on the dive but only 40 or so looking for eggs. The other two dives were at St. Leonard's (where we had great viz!) and at night, Portarlington Pier (which had terrible viz and was murky and gooey).

Velvetfish at Portarlington Pier - they are such odd looking fish

Buddy and a jellyfish at the Dominion wreck (he is my other regular buddy and has joined Scubaboard too now as MidnightElf so I have told him to come check out our threads!)

Old Wife face at St. Leonard's

St. Leonard's pier - this is quite shallow along the breakwater. You can see the viz is nice and there were tonnes of tiny little fish schooling

Short Tail nudi - I love these so you are probably getting sick of pics of them

Looking forward to getting a bunch of dives in over Easter - what are other people's plans for the long weekend?