Hi all, Sam here - new MASC recruit. I've been asked to knock up the latest
dive report for your reading pleasure. Without further adieu:
Steve had grand plans for the weekend of the 9th-11th May. Two, maybe three
days of exciting wreck, reef and drift dives out of his place at Ocean
Grove. The good people of MASC recognised what a ripping idea this was and
signed up enthusiastically, and Steve's house was looking to be pretty
thoroughly filled with divers. Then we all checked the weather, noted the
40 km/h westerlies, and almost everyone suddenly came to the realisation
that they actually had way more important things to do that weekend.
So the weekend extravaganza was scaled down to a single day of b oat diving
in the bay. A few brave (stupid?) few remained to endure the elements:
Katie, Sumi, a few new recruits - Jeremy, myself (I'm Sam btw) and my
partner Jess, as well as MASC stalwarts Amanda, Timo and Steve (obviously).
Undeterred, we hit the water. As soon as we got into the bay we took a
collective gasp at the surprisingly-not-that-shit-at-all conditions. We
were reasonably protected and the chop was nothing Sir John couldn't
handle. The first group went for a drift dive off Queenscliff. Observing
from the surface, I was unable to glean much information about their dive,
and so can't provide terribly insightful commentary on the matter. Upon
surfacing, Amanda grinned deliriously and Timo mumbled something about
stingrays. From that we can only assume that their dive was fantastic.
A quick detour to pick up Jeremy and drop off Jess (who, due to
seasickness, had turned a lovely shade of green) we were racing back out to
get to Lonsdale Wall in time for slack tide. We missed it. Determined not
to let this interfere with or dive, we dropped down the shot line, where we
discovered Jeremy's occy had rather rudely relieved him of most of his air
during a freeflow, so he ascended and went back to the boat to reminisce
about his exquisite 6 minute dive. Katie, Steve and I dropped to 30m to
check out the wall. We found the rear end of a shark poking out of it, and
in our eagerness to investigate almost landed on the biggest smooth ray I
have ever seen. We backed out a little more carefully.
After refueling with hot chocolate and junk food, we went back out in the
arvo for some more drifts in the bay. Current was roaring along and
everyone was loving it. The name of the game was dodging rapidly
approaching reefs and underwater cliffs, which everybody managed with
considerable prowess (with the notable exception of Steve, who got a reg
snagged on a rock and had to drop the drift line, ending his dive (great
job!)).
Cheers all for a top day!
Sam.
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