The Monument and the tide

Jane and I went to the Monument in Kurnell for a shore dive on the 8th October.

For more information on the site see http://sydneyscubadive.blogspot.com/2010/06/monument.html

We found the usual Nudibrancs

There was a very strong current on the dive today which was quite surprising given that we were in the water about 30 minutes after high tide. There was a spring tide which saw a low of  0.4M and a high of 1.7M. followed by a low of 0.3M This caused a huge volume of water to want to move out of the bay in the 6 hours between high and low.

A Whitear Fish (Guess how he got his name?)

It was like trying to dive on a very windy day. We had to hold on to the rocks to maintain position and swimming forward took a lot of effort. While trying to hold on to take a photograph we were getting hit with loose kelp 'blowing' past like tumbleweeds

Mosaic Starfish

Obviously this site is impacted by the size of the tide, so it is something to bear in mind if you are considering diving here.

Octopus holding up shells for privacy

Bare Island

The October long weekend brought heavy rain to Sydney and flat seas which makes great diving conditions. The rain coupled with the NRL grand final saw only a handful of divers out today.
Today the DM was Oscar and my dive buddy was Hollie . The visibility was really good, considering the rain we have had,. I guess the storm run off hasn't hit the bay yet, or the storms of recent weeks have cleared the water up? Whatever the cause the visibility was about 10M which is great for Bare Island.

We found various Nudibranchs, Moray eels, heaps of Port Jackson Shark eggs, starfish and the friendliest blue groper.

Blue Groper

Nudibranch

Moray Eel

Port Jackson Shark egg

 I love the sponge gardens to the West of Bare Island. The great visibility really gives you a better appreciation of just how beautiful this area is. Usually in 2-5M viz you don't get to take in the volume of this area.

Sponge Gardens to West of Bare Island

Starfish

Interesting Plant with an anemone in the centre

Another Nudibranch

 Our first dive was to the East side of the Island and I found an Eastern Blue Devil Fish in the large overhang. I took several photos but something went wrong with my camera. I think the strobe maybe wasn't getting in the crevise because the pictures came out like there was no flash. I checked at the time and the strobe was firing and all my other pictures came out so something about the position of the camea and strobe must have affected the picture. Here is the poor result!

Eastern Blue Devil fish with no flash!

And another Nudibranch

Mosaic Starfish

 The second dive of the day was to the west side and was a very nice dive. Holly and I found a friendly blue groper that stayed with us for most of the dive. Every time we went to look at something he was right in there seeing if he was getting a feed. We surfaced out over John, Merrick rock after a 3 min safety stop and had about a 100M surface swim. We choose to do this to spend more time in the sponge gardens and because we knew that the bay was like a millpond. Obviously if there had been a swell hitting the island then this would not have been a good idea.

Hollie and the Blue Groper

Here is a slide show of all today's photos from the 2 dives at Bare Island:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

All up 2 good dives on one of Sydney's most popular dive sites.