Point Lonsdale Fish Count.

Dive Number: 116
Location: Point Lonsdale
Date: 19/12/10 
Max Depth: 6m
Dive Time:  60mins
Temp:  16C
Visibility:  15m
Time In:  10:10
Tide:  High 09:46, 1.2m/ Slack 11:27/ Swell 2ft.
Thermal:  5mm Semi-dry
Weight:  18lbs, a bit heavy.

Point Lonsdale again!! Maybe that's why it's taken me so long to type this one up. This time Phil and I were introducing two buddies to the site and we were also participating in the Great Victorian Fish Count.

On arrival conditions looked quite good. It was high tide and the surface had some small wave action but the water looked clear. We decided to enter off the end of the pier this time rather than the beach and is much easier than negotiating the rocks and waves whilst trying to put on your fins.

There was a slight current running into the bay and after leaving the pier Sarah and I just gently drifted along in it trying to maintain a rough easterly course. At around the 20 minute mark we turned around and started heading west, it was a new part of the site for me so I didn't really know where we were. We were now swimming into the current and it was much stronger than I thought. I was starting to think perhaps we should have turned around earlier.

There wasn't a lot of life about apart from the usual suspects like blue throat wrasse. We were passed over by a school of something moving very fast, too fast to identify (salmon perhaps??) and so fast we both immediately swung around to see what was chasing them!! The weird thing was both of us actually heard the fish swim over with the same 'swooshing' noise heard on documentaries. I thought that sound was just for the telly!!

We eventually ended up a familiar spot, a crack in the rock inhabited by a blue scaly fin with a sea tulip at the opening. I have been here on every dive at this site and still don't know where it is! It was about this time that we really noticed the current drop but the surge increased dramatically. It was slack water.

We had missed the end of the pier by about 30m or so on the way back and ended up swimming into the small bay on the south side. We ended the dive by swimming back under the pier and making a reasonably graceful exit on the beach.

Wasn't the best dive I have had there, but was still good although didn't find much to take a photo of unfortunately ('cept my buddy of course!!).