Western Australia dive report

[moorish8idol]

Hi folks! I see that only a few people have posted their reviews of diving in WA and having recently returned from a 3 week diving trip there, I thought I might chime in for the benefit of future travelers. It really is a phenomenally beautiful place to visit and dive! [note that I was diving between 1-17 October]

I arrived internationally via Perth but flew straight to Exmouth the following day – there are one or two flights each day with Qantaslink and the trip is 2 hours. There is a shuttle that meets each flight and it was 35AUD to get a drop-in in town. I stayed at the dormitory cabins at the RAC – while it was packed with caravan travelers due to Aussie school holidays, the dorms were pretty quiet so I was able to have my own cabin for all four nights. It was a quick walk to Ningaloo Dive, the shop I dived with, but unnecessary since ND does pick-up and drop-off for all of their customers staying in Exmouth. Nice facilities, nice staff, very unreliable WIFI and a bit of a walk into town for post-dive beers/dinner (15-20 mins). Nice pool as well.

I did 3 days of diving with ND. They are the only shop that has the tender to go to the Exmouth Navy Pier. Everyone says this is a spectacular dive and I had my doubts that I would be wowed but yes, people are not lying – this is a must-do dive. You can only dive it in slack-tide so whether you can do a single or double dive will depend on the moon cycle. I really recommend doing the double dive if the dates match up. Max 17 divers go a day (obviously all together with the shop) and it isn’t cheap when you factor in the additional 50 AUD you have to fork over to the navy. But it’s still worth it. ND provides all gear and equipment with their dives (except for hoods, which I found bizarre, so bring your own if this is a requirement for your dive) though I found many of the divers (myself included) were quite cold in the water despite having full length 5 mm wetsuits provided (the water was around 23 degrees in early October). At the pier you do a loooong stride into the water (it was about 4 metres for us that day though the surface conditions were perfectly calm) but it is otherwise a very easy dive with max 12 m depth. Visibility isn’t good (3-5 m) but who cares when everything you could ever want to see is literally in front of you, surrounding you, on top of you. Saw around 10 white-tip sharks, a 3 metre grey nurse, wobbegongs, giant groupers (we saw the BFG AND all of his friends – in fact at one point I felt annoyed about having a diver swimming over top of me but when I turned to look up, I realized it was the big friendly grouper coming in for a better look), cuttlefish, octopus, frog fish, lion fish, schools of trevally, even lots of beautiful nudis for the macro-lovers. On double dives, your surface time is very short (again, they have to keep to a very tight schedule to ensure you are in the water for slack tide) and we lost 5 minutes off of our second dive because people couldn’t get organized quick enough so the dives were 50 and 45 minutes each for us but wonderful nonetheless! I also dived the Muiron Islands and the regular Ningaloo Reef (Lighthouse bay) but windy conditions and less than desirable surface conditions (I didn’t find them so terrible but the boat did have open-water students on board so I think ND wanted to ensure everyone was as safe and comfortable as possible) kept us from diving some of the better locations (like the Labyrinth at Lighthouse and the beautiful coral gardens and swim-throughs of Muiron) so I personally felt a bit underwhelmed by the dives there but it is a matter of your diving preferences. People who love bommies, coral and macro life will probably love it. Profiles were very shallow (max 10 metres usually) and dives usually consisted of exploring the bommies (lots of beautiful fish, schools, rays hidden under the bommies). ND will also let you do a snorkel/swim with mantas between dives if they see them (I saw 2! Other groups saw them on their dives as well) which is a huge bonus considering people pay $300 AUD just to go out for the day to search out and snorkel with the mantas. Overall good shop, really nice enthusiastic staff, safety was prioritized and equipment was good.

Also as a side note, I had a bit of lingering sinusitis when I started diving and my ears started to get quite clogged so I visited the Exmouth health centre to get my ears looked at. Not cheap for non-Aussies (and people coming from countries that do not have a reciprocal agreement with Australia) but I have to say I was very well cared for and perhaps lucked out but didn’t have to wait at all (I headed over around 6 pm.) and the ER doctor was well versed in diving and ear problems and hooked me up with a good short round of antibiotics that completely sorted me out (there are no health clinics in Exmouth, just the hospital). Continued below....

 

[moorish8idol]

After Exmouth, I headed up to Broome via Karijini (even though this is not a dive destination it is a fabulous place and a must-see while you are in WA – the Eco Retreat and their eco tents are wonderful) before going on the week-long liveaboard to the Rowley Shoals with Odyssey Expeditions. Overall, it was an absolutely fabulous week of diving – this is the least expensive (by far) of the few boats that make the trip to the Shoals in September-November each year and in my experience it attracted a really wonderful mix of people. On board we had 20 passengers, 16 divers, 4 snorkelers of which 16 were Aussie, 2 Americans (though based in Perth), 1 Brit and 1 Canadian. They have just one DM on the trip for safety briefings and dive descriptions but in general the dives are drift/wall dives and as one of the least experienced divers on the trip, I always felt safe and sure on my dives. We were offered 20 dives in total during the week, 1 of which was a night dive (another night dive was offered but rejected as they only permit you to do night dives inside the reef at Clerke which is a shallow, coral dive – this makes sense as it would be pretty insane to have to search out drift divers in the dark) and tended to follow the same schedule each day of dives at 6:30, 9:30, 1:30 and 3:30. Dive times tended to get delayed as the day progressed but we never missed out on anything because of it. Odyssey crew was absolutely wonderful, especially when a good number of the passengers felt quite ill on the crossing over (we were told it would be rough and were handed seasickness pills by the staff but due to stronger than normal winds it appeared to have been a bit rougher than normal) – 5 people ended up sleeping on the floor of the back of the boat that night and the crew came in to offer people inflatable mattresses and to fetch pillows and blankets from their cabins. Everyone survived regardless and the trip back was calmer.

Once at the Shoals, conditions are extremely calm though the wet season seems to have hit the Kimberleys quite a bit earlier this year so we did not always have the traditionally perfect glass-off days and 40 metre+ visibility that some trips have enjoyed in the past (I was told before that 30 m viz is a "bad day" at RS). Due to poorer than usual viz (which was still good by regular standards) we did not see any hammerheads or tiger sharks (as had been seen by the group on the same boat the week before) but had whitetips and grey reefies on practically every dive as well as the occasional tawny nurse. Beautiful hard and soft corals, sea fans, a pair of snorkelers counted 190 different types of fish. The big friendly cod fish Cuddles and his friend Aggro were nowhere to be seen despite two dives in Cod Hole. Rumour has it Cuddles may no longer be with us. Dives are not guided and the general recommendation was that we drop in and drift in the direction of the current, even when it changed mid-dive. There were a few dives when the current got to be quite ripping but nothing concerning from a safety point of view (just a very fast ride!). However, most divers on the boat had hundreds if not 1,000+ dives under their weight belts. The boat does not have nitrox though this really didn’t affect bottom times too much as there is plenty to see at shallower depths (sharks were generally spotted between 10-20 m). Safety was important and so rules were that dives be max 50 minutes or 50 bar, whichever first and the max depth for the dive shallowed up throughout the day though never deeper than 30 m. As we generally did 4 dives a day and there was plenty to see at all depths, I didn’t see any of the rules as an impediment to our diving enjoyment. Fills were generally between 200-220 bar. The law requires roll-call after each dive and this was followed!



We spent 4 days at Clerke Reef which was my preferred part of the atolls (perhaps because our surface and water conditions were superior there including a glass-off day where you could see clear 30 metres to the bottom from the boat and could spot all the marine life, sharks etc before you even hit the water) and we loved the Blue Lagoon dive so much, we did it twice. Odyssey is allowed to moor their dive tender Homer at Clerke so all dives are done from Homer while there. This usually meant a bit more time getting everyone onto Homer but translated into faster pickups at the end of our drift dives. Homer is quite tight for 16 divers to get suited up on (not terrible but a bit cramped to get fins on and the sort) and quite crowded when the 4 snorkelers joined us. We then went to Mermaid Reef for the remaining 3 days where conditions were less than perfect (still great though no glass-off) and all dives are done from the Odyssey. This translated into some long wait times upon surfacing (20-30 minutes on a few dives) to get a pick up from the big boat though they use a tinnie to search out divers and make sure everyone was ok (but they only pick up the snorkelers from the tinnie). At the end of the day, these are small inconveniences (none of the RS boats are full-time dive boats given how short the season is there) and we all had a fabulous time. Food was abundant and varied though dinners tended to be quite heavy on the meat and potatoes which was just what the predominantly male diving contingency wanted. Fruit, lollies and brownies provided after dives and you were free to go to the coffee machine to make your own cappuccino etc whenever you wanted. It is not a BYOB boat but booze prices were reasonable – bottles of wine for $25-35 AUD and beers/cider around the $4 mark. One of the best non-diving moments was enjoying a sundowner beer on Bedwell Island (at Clerke). Conclusion: the dives were amazing but the crew and fellow divers were even better! 10/10 experience (reflected likely in the high number of repeat customers on the boat) and one for the bucket-list. Also worth spending a few days before or after in Broome to enjoy its beautiful beaches, brewery etc.

 

[mrrworld]

Thats's a great trip report. Thanks for posting. I am thinking of going there in May/June. In Exmouth, is there any other dive shops besides ND or are they the only one?

 

[moorish8idol]

There are 2 dive shops in Exmouth. The other one is EDC (Exmouth diving centre). But like I mentioned you can only go to the Pier with DN and they offer discounts if you do multiple trips with them.

 

[Wingy]

Really good report - aren't those BFGs awesome

 

[FishCity]

Thanks for a great report. We were in Exmouth in a March and though it was warmer, the water was not so clear due to nutrients. The whale sharks enjoyed them

 

[PugHugger]

Thanks for taking the time to write this.

I must get to Exmouth. I must.