Australia Archives - Scuba Dive in Perth Australia

Ningaloo Reef Dive 2

We travelled a little further up the coast and moored again at our next site for the day.

Ningaloo Reef Double Dive Map` — Ningaloo Reef Double Dive Map

This site is marked out by a large coral ledge at the centre of the dive area with a multitude of limestone caverns and coral ledges around to explore.

Follwing the mooring line down to the sand shelf at about 10m depth, we encountered what we believe to be a very well camoflagued wobbygong under one of the ledges. It was about 1m long, but wedged so well under the ledge I wasn’t able to get any good pictures of it.

We moved away from the mooring line and headed over to the large coralledge at the centre of the site.

Swimming around the left side of the site, we got to see plenty of life.

This interesting pair never seperated by more than a few centimeters in the whole time I was watching them.

Some of the coral formations were amazing and look so fragile.

My buddy and I were then treated by a fly past from a Manta Ray.

It circled around us and then came back again a few minutes later for another look!

Manta Ray Video

This guy looks like he was very comfortable using a coral bowl as a place to rest.

There was a large turtle that was hanging around on his favourite piece of rock.

While touring the right hand circle, we were followed around by this rather friendly sea snake.

At this point, my camera battery died, but I was able to persuade it to try again to get this final shot of an octopus that was hiding under a limestone outcrop.

Not the best photo in the world! I will try better next time!

Tomorrow, we are off to the Muiron Islands…

Ningaloo Reef Dive 1

Having been picked up in Exmouth, a short bus ride later and we were at Bundegi Jetty to get the small tender over to our Ningaloo Reef dive boat for the day. Today’s sites are on the North end of the spit.

After a boat trip around the point for about 40 minutes, punctuated by frequent Humpback Whale sightings, we arrived at our first dive site. Jumping in the water, we then headed to the mooring line to descend. Following the line down to the bottom at around 12m depth we were treated with the first sight of the day. A lion fish was sitting quite happily under the concrete block that holds the mooring in place.

Once we were all together at the bottom, we headed out along the line of the reef moving against the current. The life of the reef was amazing.

I am never sure that photographs really to justice to the increadible abundance of activity on the reef so here is a video. The quality isn’t great, but it shows how the fish collect together and appear to be connected!

Shoal of Fish Video

Next up. Dive 2…

BHP Jetty Night Dive

Wednesday 15th July – BHP Jetty Night Dive

It was just the two of us today on the BHP Jetty Night Dive, but what the rest of you missed was probably the best visibility we have had for the past couple of months. The conditions were pretty close to perfect with a light current running north to south and virtually no swell.

With a maximum depth of around 8.3m we were down for 67 minutes which at 15 deg C did start to get a bit cold, but we were rewarded by some great things to see. No Great Whites or Manta rays that we had been promised, but the number of Seahorses and colourful Nudibranch were fantastic.

Having experimented with video last week, I took a few more snippets today along with a lot of photos so I will share a few:

Firstly, for those of you who haven’t been on a night dive, this is Aaron ahead of me:

The legs of the Jetty are covered in soft corals, feather anemone and there were a lot of starfish and these Nudibranch crawling around:

Camoflague Starfish - BHP Jetty Night Dive — Camouflage Starfish – BHP Jetty Night Dive

Feather Anemone - BHP Jetty Night Dive — Feather Anemone – BHP Jetty Night Dive

Purple Spotted Orange Nudibranch - BHP Jetty Night Dive — Purple Spotted Orange Nudibranch – BHP Jetty Night Dive

The Seahorses were out in force:

Seahorse Family - BHP Jetty Night Dive — Seahorse Family – BHP Jetty Night Dive

Seahorse Pair - BHP Jetty Night Dive — Seahorse Pair – BHP Jetty Night Dive

Including this beautiful orange seahorse!

Shortly before the turn, Aaron spotted a Cuttlefish hiding under some rocks:

Purple Cuttlefish - BHP Jetty Night Dive — Purple Cuttlefish – BHP Jetty Night Dive

And then further on we met another one swimming in the open water:

And then a small Stingray next to a shoal of juvenile Catfish.

Stingray - BHP Jetty Night Dive — Stingray

On the way up to the beach, we stayed under and scanned the sand for other interesting life. As always there where quite a number of Blue Swimmer Crabs and small fish, and then we came across this Sand Eel trying to hide from our lights.

And this which has now been identified as a Horrowed Sole.

Next week, the Perth Scuba Manta Club have pencilled in a dive on the coast North of the river, but that will be weather dependant. The wind and swell are dropping after the weekend, so fingers crossed…

Ammo Jetty Night Dive

Wednesday 1st July – Ammo Jetty Night Dive

Not letting a little bit of rain put us off, we met in the car park to gear up for a night dive at Ammo Jetty.

We had a varied crew. A couple of seasoned locals, two fairly new divers and three recently qualified PADI Open Water Scuba Instructors.

I haven’t been out on a night dive for a long lime and I soon remembered how much I do love it. The underwater world comes alive at night and it gives you a completely different perspective on the dive site. Sandy bottoms that in the day are empty, in the night are peppered with crabs and shrimps. In your torch, the jellyfish shimmer and cuttlefish swim past your mask at close quarter.

Blue Swimmer Crabs defending their patch

We also saw quite a few other things including quite a large Stingray that had been hooked by one of the fishermen on the jetty overhead.

My buddy was kind enough to liberate it and it didn’t hang around after that. The other things we saw were Frog fish, lots of Starfish, a small Port Jackson Shark and a Rock Fish hiding in the soft corals on one of the pylons.

I can’t wait to go out again next week. The current plan is to go out from South Mole (Freemantle)…

Scuba Dive in Perth Australia – Introduction

This is intended to be a general interest blog for those who go scuba dive in Perth Australia and the surrounding area. My plan is to post up photos, dive profiles, maps, equipment reviews and other items that may be of interest to divers wherever they may be, and hopefully you will one day come and discover the delights that the underwater world has to offer here in Western Australia.

What I love about scuba diving is it gives you a great excuse to go to some of the most amazing and beautiful places around the world.

As it happens, this week I will have been diving for 16 years having done my original PADI Open Water course off Palm Beach in Sydney back in 1999. A couple of years later I did the PADI Advanced Open Water at Sharm El Sheikh, Eqypt, followed by Rescue Diver and PADI Dive Master in Jamaica in the Caribbean. As you can probably tell, I am a warm water diver! Having lived most of my life in the UK, I still haven’t ever dived there, although I have been diving in the Mediterranean and that was pretty cold when we got below the thermocline at 10m!

Now, however I have started again to scuba dive in Perth Australia.

Sunday May 17th 2017

Today was supposed to be the first dive to record in my blog, however the weather conspired against us and a lovely storm rolled in from the Indian Ocean.

Perth Weather Radar on the day. Copyright www.bom.gov.au

Watching it for the few days before, it was supposed to have improved by Sunday, but on the day the rain rolled in.

Next week will hopefully improve …