The weather was good, the rest of the week wasn't looking all that promising, work was winding down for the year, and there was time for another dive before the Christmas rush on the Peninsula...

I used Will's tank on this dive, which is smaller than mine, and I could hae done with a bit more weight in the shallower portions of this dive, but it was still manageable at 7kg. There was a very large school of Australian Herring under the pier, and we could have spent much of the dive just sitting on the bottom watching them flow around us. We first headed off to the Eivion wreck, which sank 100 years ago this month. There were a few small Stingarees and a Banjo Shark near the wreck, and some Leatherjackets, Zebrafish and Moonlighters hiding amongst the timbers, but we didn't see any Cuttlefish this time. We did see a couple of colonies of Grape Ascidians on the way out to the wreck.

After swimming the length of the pier we headed out to the new reef, via Elsa's. We found a small group of Barber Perch at Elsa's, and there were even more Pale Octopus at the new reef this time than there was when we first made it out to there. Many of the breeze blocks near the star picket trail were also occupied by octopus, all pretending to be seaweed, and exhibiting a creative variety of colours and tassels.

There were qute a few student divers in the water today, but most of them were further in towards shore, so we only saw a few of them. The carpark was nowhere near full, and after we had filled our tanks Kirsty and I came back and had fish and chips to celebrate another great dive!

Divers: Kirsty Batchelor, Peter Batchelor

Weather/Sea: 10kt Southerly.
Visibility: 6 Metres.
Water temperature: 17°C.
Maximum depth: 9.1 metres.
Time of entry: 11.00am
Duration: 70 minutes.