Saturday 10th May 2014

Today we headed out on Chris’ boat with the hopes of diving Las Vegas, but as there was a two metre swell and fifteen knot South Eastery we stayed inside the bay to dive Curtain Artificial Wrecks.

It must have been about a year since diving this site so I was actually quite keen to do it. I also remembered the Giant Queensland Groupers that live in the wrecks and was hoping to get some good footage of them.

Nick and Christian went in the first wave and hung out with several Giant Grouper on the sand, saying they were not the skittish Grouper they used to be, but in fact a bit aggressive and intimidating, coming within a metre of them, and apparently not particularly happy that they were there.

When Chris and I got in the tide was at it’s lowest and whilst this meant a nice slack current it also meant a very dirty dive. We had been dropped in at the wrong spot so I navigated us North West to sixteen metres where we eventually, after twenty minutes of diving on sand, found the wrecks. Visibility dropped away to five metres but it was just filthy and I knew I wouldn’t be getting anything on the camera unless I was very close to it.

I saw a school of Jacks, some huge Kobia which for the whole day I thought were sharks until I watched the footage at home and we could just make out they were Kobia. There were huge Flute fish, Tropical fish, Snapper, Cod, it definitely wasn’t the best dive I’ve ever had but it was still fun. It was also the first day of the cold season in my drysuit, actually it was for all four of us, and It felt quite cumbersome getting used to the feeling of it again. I completed a fifty minute dive here with a maximum depth of twenty eight metres.

For dive number two we decided to do Comboyuro Point. This was set to be kind of an exploratory dive as we didn’t have an exact mark for it. Nick and Christian were the Guinea pigs. They tied off to a buoy to drift along with but came up after fourteen minutes after seeing only sand. We sent them back in again to find the site, and after another seventeen minutes they found it and tied off a mark.

Chris and I then jumped in and drifted along the drop off to about thirty metres then up to an average of twenty metres where the coffee rock ledges began. It was quite a nice dive as the structure was interesting. Despite the crap floating around in the water, the visibility was better than the first dive, and we saw some Giant Grouper, Sweet lipped fish, Tropical fish, Snapper, Cod, Sting rays, huge Barracuda, and the highlight of the day was seeing a stunning Leopard Whip Ray.

I had never seen one before but it’s markings are just like a Leopard and they have incredibly long but petite tails. One came right up underneath me which freaked me out a bit so it was nice having the camera in between the Ray and I.

I completed a forty three minute dive with a maximum depth of thirty three metres. A nice site that I would like to do again.

Water temperature today was twenty one degrees and the wind was a bit chilly, on what was an overcast day. I was happy to be in my drysuit.