South West Rocks & Fishrock Cave

The October long weekend offered us the opportunity to get three days at  South West Rocks.

We left on Friday morning, picking a tank up each from Abyss and heading up the coast for the five hour trip.

Everyone arrived by about 9pm and we were set for a great weekend of diving. Two boat dives each day for three days, with Ed, Steve, Lukas, Sean, Amber, David, Kim, Malcolm and me

Day One

We headed out and were joined by a pod of dolphins on our journey to Fishrock cave. We entered the water on the north side of Fishrock to dive The Pinnacles and a juvenile humpback whale surfaced no more than 20m from the boat. We saw a few grey nurse sharks (GNS) and wobbygongs and a very defensive lion fish. For our second dive we went around to the south and enjoyed the gutters where there were a lot more GNS. The conditions were a little choppy leaving a few people a bit green around the gills. We went to the local pub for lunch and finished up the day with a great BBQ, where I was likened to Huckleberry Fin by starting to cook the BBQ but ending up with everyone else doing it for me. I did redeem myself with my European inspired desert which went down a treat!

Day Two

A perfect day with conditions about as good as it gets. On our way out we saw a few hump back whales breaching and splashing, there seemed to be a lot of them in the area for the long weekend as well! Both dives today were through the cave and then taking time to swim with the GNS. We saw a huge bull Ray at a cleaning station, getting his/her teeth and gums cleaned by the brave little cleaner fish.

I made this video of the day.

Day Three

The winds had picked up overnight to be quite strong, but this led to a most amazing trip out and back. The humpbacks were fully breaching all over the sea. Everywhere we looked we saw humpbacks launching them selfs from the ocean into the air. The skipper said that he believes he wind and choppy sea causes them to do this so that they can get a good breath, it was quite spectacular. We dived on the pinnacles again in quite a strong surrender and then went to Green Island for our last dive of the trip. At Green island we saw several turtles and I a huge wobby swam straight into me. I thought it was another diver kicking me until I turned and saw the wobby, I am sure they are quite blind as he just adjusted course and went on his way.