Great day on the water this morning. Had been itching to get out for the start of the season but having missed out on getting the 15th off work we had to settle for today. So yea anyway today was our chance to get into the crays, unfortunately someone must've told em we were coming! first season in six years we've lucked out on the first dive and unfortunately the catch is of to a poor start. We hit up an always reliable spot in 6 meters off hillarys this spot provides 8 good nests that hold all year round even if mostly kakkers when the bastards are out deep..... Today not a single cray around! well actually we found one female of 83mm carapace all alone sitting under a random out of the way ledge so we still opened our account for the year with one cray and got ourselves a crayfish salad for tonight so gotta be happy with that. Still cant get over each and every nest being completely barron nothing we've every expirienced at this site before, so hoping they'll move in and take up residence in a few weeks as it would be a shame to see an always reliable site turn into a void of crayfish. The place never has any pots dropped near it and only gets dived by us a couple of times a year.

But anyway we still had a great dive and trip out today, the sun was shinning, the wind was playing the game for a while and the water was starting to warm up for the miss. we managed to make it onto the water by 930 after a bit if a sleep in and getting the tanks filled. Today the scout of the fleet was selected as the weapon of choice as I'd still yet to christen our dory for its diveability and the glass boat still being in peices in the driveway. Just as we were launching the wind had dropped to under 10 knots and we motored out and loggged on. A quick stop at little island for a swim as it was already stinkin hot and off to our dive site the cray canyon(now to be renamed "the canyon") Also today was the first chance to road test a new (cheapie)Strobe and fish eye lens for the camera. First thought was leave the camera behind as i was geared up for a serious crayfest... luckily i choose to go and struggle with loop, catchbag and camera set up all clipped onto the BC looking like a well dressed christmas tree.

First up we dropped down on the anchor which is in the middle of a sand hole in the reef with the westen ledges usually holding a 20m strip of cray country.. as stated above all baron. fish life was abound however with all the usual suspects and a wobby that shyed away before a could get a camera shot off. So then it was of to the caves, swimming west from the hole and into kelp country after about 20m into the kelp you come across this hole about 3m wide that drops down into a small cave system that leads out a drop off to 10meters under the surface and runs for about twenty meters.

Sometimes right up against the sides of the caves u can find a few retarded crays that always seem to be lost although a rare occurance, this time all that was in residence was a small cuttle and a port jackson. Also when the crays are in close you can usually catch a few more retards in the"enchanted cray pot of doom!" this is a pot that has been cut off what must've been many years before we found the site as it is completely encrusted in concretion and coral/sponges and has fused to become part of the floor at the mouth of the cave(its a plastic pot so it hasn't broken down) anyway although unbaited we lways tend to get a few crays a year that always tend to crawl in there and await our return, we've pulled up to 3 crays once out the pot/peice of reef/enchanted craypot of doom!.You should be able to see the pot in the next pic to the left of Jac in the background next to the beam of light.

So anyway we managed to capture a few snaps but unfortunately no crustaceans! Back to the anchor and this time we head east to 5 meter depth to a ledge that runs for about 150meters and holds 5 (usually) year round nests... well once again as stated alllllll empty, well at this point i was pretty gutted and was kicking myself for not bringing our second round of tanks. Luckily on our return we started checking under the isolated little bommies and ledges out from the main ledge and found a lonely lady cray all lost and scared so we quickly took her in to give her a new home. Also on the swim back we managed to spot a weedy seadragon full of eggs and managed a few snaps of him too,was a good chance to try the fish eye on macro as the bloke talked it up alot but unfortunately didn work out as planned as the bugger was too flighty for me but got him a few times out of macro testing out the strobe.

At that point we were pretty much back at the boat, we surfaced up to find the southwester had set in and chopped things up a bit. We pulled the anchor and we're off to head back to the lee of little island and scoff some lunch and jump in for another swim with the camera. aproaching the island to get some pics of the seals and the littlest guy bolts straight up and at me, at this point i'm in waist deep water and 50 meters from the boat.now the little guy was bolting right at me with the urgency i hadn't witnessed and had me preparing to go hand to hand with a sea lion, now i reckon i can take these guys on land but in the water one would have to expect to get owned. luckily he changed direction at the last moment launching out of the water and coming down just next to me, their speed in the water is seriously amazing when their excited, anyway I played with him for about 5 minutes until he got bored with the slow ass human sea cow and he buggered off rolled in the sand for a while and went back to sleep... the life of a seal hey...

And finally back to the boat to push the little dory nose first into a 15knot southerly... great fun for jacqui sittin up front:) A great time back out on the ocean today after being absent for a while, pretty bummed out about the lack of crays at an old favourite but atleast we didn't zilch out and we eat cray for tea tonight! if only one... just gives us more excuse to get back out at the next possible opportunity! and we dont have to eat frozen crays:) good luck to all gettin out there, atleast now you'll know hillarys shallow is lacking but should hopefully pick up and the coming weeks ay. next dive we'll probably hit up 12 meters ontop of the 3 mile if that lucks out it'll be out to the deep stuff hopefully season will pick up and this isn't a sign of the year to come!

Good Luck to all