How did the divers go today?

Not that flash for me today, started the hunt at 7:00am to be met by a long que at the ramp. Water police and dept of transport were out holding things up checking licenses and such, we got checked and were in the water by 7:20.

Got to what i thought was a little known spot for my first atempt at ab's this season.Well two years ago it used to be a little known spot! we were be greeted with a row of about 10 boats all anchored up and the reef crawling with fins and bodies flailing every where. Any who 15 minutes later, still plenty of ab's on the reef and enough to get my bag limit.

First Dive 14m and Visability was terrible and not what i'd expected from a week of lowish swell. It took a few crays to get the the cobwebs out then we started mowin em down:) crays were very flighty tho,saw a few sizeable whites the rest we found to be quite undersize. turned for my camera and realised my strobe had come loose and floated off! started kicking myself and wondering why i no longer secure it to my camera with a back up cord incase the screw comes loose from the housing like i used to. Back on board the boat after a hour dive we checked the catch, of the ten crays we bought back 4 were 76mm, 4 were 76.5!!! one large female that was setose, she went back unharmed. one keeper! a nice male of around 85mm. maaan first day of the season and only one cray!

Second dive was 5 meters, still average vis, still saw heaps of crays but none in the usual places.I managed  to single out a few daddies but didn't bother with anything that looked questionable size wise.Then I started having loop issues with the cheap crappy loop i pulled outta the shed. Made it a quick dive and did my circuit and started heading back to the boat.On the way back I had my loop attacked by an angry cuttlefish that then turned on jacqui, quite hillarious as she shat herself wen it started going for her mask.

back up top to a choppy sea and a steady ride home to hillarys. We got to the ramp where we were about 7th inline in the circling boats.We finally got the boat on the trailer 20 minutes later and looked back to see about 20 odd boats all crammed in waiting to use the ramp.

All in all was good to be out there we came out with a feed for tonight, 20 ab's and 3 good crays, but down a $400 strobe. bit undecided on the cray situation plenty out there but struggled to get size crays.

How did everyone else go??

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 Dave J.


Cammos's picture

Posts: 606

Date Joined: 30/06/09

I was booked on an 0630 dive

Sun, 2009-11-15 21:28

I was booked on an 0630 dive with Image Dive but I missed the boat by not much at all. Not a great start to the season, but I did sea trial a new boat briefly, which went well.

Word on the water is that they are hard to find in take-able condition, plus the vis is aweful.

scotto's picture

Posts: 2469

Date Joined: 21/04/08

we

Mon, 2009-11-16 07:15

didnt go too flash.

took 2 boats so we all could dive. me and joe shot ahead from the other boys so as to get to our never fail spots first. pulled up to the spot and there was another boat 100m to the right of us, with what looked like a white inflatable hanging off it, and a rank smell in the air.

closer inspection reveals the "inflatable boat" to be a good size dead whale, and mutual agreement made to not dive anywhere near the thing.

ended up trying a few spots north i had marked, but hadnt dived. first spot saw 2 crays, but too deep in the caves, and really flighty, none caught.

2nd spot better with bigger lumps, and better ground. ended up bagging 6 good sized ones, but when i got back to the boat, only 3 in the bag?!?! far ken spring on the catch bag busted, and half me crays gone  not happy.

ended up with 6 crays for 2 boats not good at all, but will pick up in a few weeks i reckon. will be good to see what the never fail spots will produce once dead whale buggers off.