that area only free diving i can tell you that the first reef is quite fishless if i where you id go a little further north and try those reefs, mindarie seems over fished thats just my personal opinion!stick to the 10 to 15m range and theres a chance of the odd baldie!stay away from the exposed reef try follow some of the contours line at the back of those reefs!and you should have yourself some good viewing!good luck and ejoy your first trip they only get better!

There are lots of bomies out of the marina Heads just use your sounder and its hit and miss as far as the crays go. We used to dive there lots and generally headed north west we nearly always got crays and often bagged out. it also depends how far you want to travel as there is plenty of good ground further out in 15/25m of water (more fish if you want to spear) north north west Being your first dive i would stay in close and dive shallower(about 10 m) so you get used to your gear and have more bottom time to pratice enjoy (IF you have no luck let me know and one day ill come and show you )

cheers guys - we are going to do two dives so with this in mind i might do one around the first reef, then head north up to elington rock and do the other dive there - i guess this way we'll get to compare different areas.

so  how have u guys done recently - caught many crays?  I've heard the crays are out deep at the mo...?

Havent been going out much but my last dive was 16th this month and i got f 6 my bag  5 over 85 mm and one 152mm that is as big as my air tank i was out of hillaries south in about 18/19m (if i ever figure out how to put pic's up i will post some)

I've been up that way on a Mindarie dive charter a few times. Try this site:

http://mindive.com/wa-dive-sites/