Went out on Friday night for a river dive with my mate, Matto. After a false start on thursday night, when we got down to the spot, right on time to realise that he'd forgotten his weight belt! Guess it wasn't to be that night and we decided on a dive for Friday after work.

We packed up the car and got down to the spot about 6:45pm, the traffic was pretty shocking on the freeway. Anyway after a quick scope of the area we suited up and waded into the water about 7:15, just after dark. In true form Matto had forgotten his big UK torch this time - lucky he's so quick on the prawn net and at grabbing those crabs - so I lent him my spare UK MiniQ. Surprisingly those little torches put out quite a bit of light. Once in chest deep we put our masks on and decided on a path to follow, that would hopefully have us surface close to the exit point. It's a lot harder to navigate in the dark at the bottom of the swan than you would think...

Anyway, we hit the bottom after a short swim in about 7 metres and the visability was remarkably good. I guess this would be due to the break in dredging out of Freo, cause that seemed to really make it murky. We worked off Matto's compass for directions and started to scout the river bed for dinner.

There were heaps of star fish on the bottom and a fair few nice sized whiting. Within 5 mins I spotted a nice sized blue manna, already waving his claws at me asking for a fight. That's all the invite I need and snatched at him, bracing for those claws. The little ones can barely nip you, but the big blues, well they are a different story. Even through my kevlar diving glove he gave me one hell of a nip on the wrist but he was too good a size to drop. Man was I relieved once that catch bag closed with him in it.

I had stirred up the silt on the bottom a bit and could just make out Matto's tank about 5 metres to my right. I swan over to find that he had been busy picking up some prawns, all great size too! He's definately still refining the technique, but hell he was doing well for a first try. He tapped me on the arm and pointed into the distance where I could see the raised claws of another big blue. They are funny and ballsy creatures these crabs, a giant bloody human can swim right up to them and they just hold their ground and raise their fists. Or claws as it may be. Unfortunately he didn't stand a chance - I swam around behind him and before he could turn I had picked him up and shut him in the bag. I almost felt guilty. lol.

Matto came over and started indicating that we were off course and to follow him. We went off on a bit of a prawn reccy and picked up a few scallops along the way. Such beautiful shells the swan river scallops have I thought, my eldest daughter is going to love these. After grabbing another couple of crabs we decided that we had pleanty for tea, especially considering the size of the crabs, and we headed for the exit point. We checked the depth it - was about 12 metres so we slowley made our way to shallower water to surface. We got to about 9 meters and Matto signalled to surface. I thought that we were way off course, but he was pretty certain. We surfaced nice and slowly and to my surprise and delight, we were right on target.

A short walk out of the water and time to pack up the gear and dry off. Once we got home the seafood platter was placed out on the back patio for a couple of quick pics and then the crabs hit the boiling water straight away. The prawns fried up nicley with the scallops in some garlic and olive oil and some ice cold beers were opened. With that there was a breif cheers and we dived into the fresh local WA seafood platter before us. I don't care what people say about the dredging ect - I rekon that seafood out of the swan is still bloody lovley. I might even grow an extra finger or two....but that would probably come in handy cause I rekon one day the bluey will have to win...

The ingredients for Friday night dinner

The size of the prawns was great as you can see