Bass & Flinders double Dive 31/10/2009

Upon arrival we found Oak Park was swarming with surfers and the swell was up so we decided to move around to the more sheltered Bass & Flinders dive site. Our Dive Master David, warned that it was only 6-8M deep but as I've never dived there I thought "why not?"

 

Schwen's camera setup

On the first dive we had a trio buddy. My buddies were Schwen and Ben, Schwen had a fairly substantial camera setup. I was trying out my red filter lens for the first time on my camera and I am happy with the results (above).

 

Ben 

We headed due East under the fishing lines and submerged to about 5M. We swam along a rock face that was teaming with life. A large and very diver friendly Blue Groper was nudging us for food and allowing the guys to stroke him.

 

Ben stroking the Groper

He was very friendly and the one of the biggest Blue Gropers I have ever seen, we saw a smaller brown/green female also, but she wasn't so diver friendly. Here is a video of him using the red filter.

 
This video was taken using the red filter: see the video below at a similar depth using the same equipment without the filter. The colour improvement is remarkable.

We went through a swim through and took our time to look under every overhang. This was a very good dive and I would recommend it to anyone. Don't be put off by the depth there is a lot of stuff to see here.

 

Caroline

The Second dive I was buddied with Caroline. We headed off ahead of the pack to avoid the congestion we encountered in our first dive. In an overhang we found a cuttlefish, a little further on we found blowfish and Nudies. I took pics of the Nudies but they came out blurred, I will have to work on the Macro settings on the camera.

 

Nudie in a sponge

We came across a Port Jackson Shark but she scuttled away quickly before I could get my camera out. We covered a lot more distance on the second dive and turned around at 2000 PSI. On the way back we found the swim through again and came across a couple of Rays that I followed to get a picture of.

timid Ray

I lost my bearings for a while and Caroline had disappeared. I spotted her in the distance and we continued back.

 

Eye see you

We found an Octopus with his trade mark rubbish pile around his hole (pic above). That is his eye peeking out at me in the hole.

All up 2 very good dives. I highly recommend this site to anyone and I am very happy with the results of the red filter on my camera.


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