Diving Around Mandurah?

[creamofwheat]

Hello Aussies. I am a Canadian who will be travelling to Mandurah next July-ish, and I will be there for 6 months or so. Of course, I want to get some diving in!

I realize that I am early but hey, I'm excited. I was wondering what kind of diving opportunities there are in the Mandurah area? I'd also be willing to go to the Perth area as well, and any other place in the near vicinity if I can manage to work it out. Any good charters around? I wont have a dive buddy, so if there's any nice shore diving, I'd also need to look into hiring a DM for a tour and whatnot.

I was also wondering, in general, what the water is like in the months of July-January, and what kind of exposure protection is required for diving in the area.

Any information you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

 

[alcina]

Can you say cold, windy with some nice swell? LOL The better diving conditions for that area start in September/October ish.

Check out Perth Diving Academy, Bell Scuba (in Rockingham) to get started - they run various charters including to Rottnest Island and there is a "wreck" trail out front of Bell Scuba that you can shore dive - lots of neat stuff to be found. Not sure around Mandurah. You can also head south to Busselton for the Jetty and to Dunsborough for the Swan and some reef diving. Try Cape Dive in Dunsborough.

You'll need at least a 5mm suit - water temps will be mid teens in winter and warming to low 20s in summer.

 

[MarkH]

http://www.victoriadiving.50megs.com/cgi-bin/framed/3354/rottnest.html

 

[creamofwheat]

Thanks for the responses. I may have to check out Rottnest island...it looks like a pretty nice dive.

Question...are dry suits common in the area, or do most people just dive wet?

And it looks like there's cavern diving around there...is there anywhere close by where I could take a cavern course? That would be so cool to learn to cavern dive...

 

[Fr3d]

I've seen a few ppl around perth with drysuits, but the majority use 5mil or even 3mil suits. Since you'll be over in winter, a 5mil would be minimum as already mentioned, and a hood might be a good idea.

Rottnest would be the place to check out, as well as the Busselton Jetty and HMAS Swan. The latter two are a few hours drive south of Mandurah. The Key Biscane in Lancelin could be worth a look, it's a sunken oil rig an hour or 2 drive north of Perth.

A few dive stores in the Perth metro area (not sure about the Rockingham & Mandurah LDS's) have weekend club dives. Basically show up at the appointed time to take part in DM led shore dives. I've learned about a few nice places this way.