Mike ball dive report May 2011

Day 1

After checking in at Mike Ball's office and depositing our luggage we headed off of pre-trip dinner to meet our fellow guests along with Mike before boarding the Spoilsport. It had been more than a number of years since either of us had been on the Spoilsport so we had come up for a short trip to reacquaint ourselves with the boat, the crew and the diving before Aquability's big New Year's trip for the end of 2011. Unlike most things in life Spoilsport was just as good as we had both remembered and so was its crew… and lets of course not forget the food J.
We awoke the following morning after an all-night steam at a spot called Challenger Bay where we were to do two dives and return for a night dive. This was an easy site to get warmed up with on for the trip especially for those who had not dived in a while. On the sandy bottom, directly under the boat, was a sea of garden eels, everywhere but shy as always ducking in and out of their holes. Also patrolling the sandy area were several large barracuda which would just hang which their noses pointed down. Lots of anthias, especially males being cleaned around the bommies. Also a good number of fang blennies popping in and out of their holes. We found a nice club cuttlefish with a blue outline and there were plenty of pairs of butterfly fish darting in and out of the coral. Hawkfish, both ring eye and blotched, also lots of coral trout, coral cod, parrot fish, blue tang, bird nosed wrasse and a few napoleon wrasse and the occasional lionfish. Under the boat there was a beautiful big giant trevally circling around.
After lunch we headed to a deeper site, Lighthouse Bommie, which we all agreed in retrospect was one of the best for the trip. We descended onto a mount next to the "lighthouse" bommies which was covered in yellow snapper schooling in big groups which looked amazing as the divers moved in and out of them. As we moved around there were large turtles hiding in the nooks and crannies as well as some olive sea snakes. Up high hanging were large schools of other fish including red bass, midnight snapper, big eye trevally, vladmirs unicorn fish, batfish and a massive dog tooth tuna, giant trevally and a large grey whaler patrolling the edges. Over on the bommies itself lots of fish sheltering from the current including colourful schooling anthias as well as including a long nosed hawkfish, batfish and palette surgeon.
We then steamed back to Challenger Bay for our night dive. We were warned about the giant trevally and red bass which patrolled this site at night and took advantage of diver's lights to catch fish. In fact they had commented on how the numbers of giant trevally had increased and perhaps the number of smaller fish had decreased. As we got in, the water was writhing with big eye trevally and drummer catching small fish and bits attracted to the lights of the boat. As we descended the giant trevally closed in and flanked us closely attacking anything which appeared in our torchlight. The novelty rapidly wore off and they became a nuisance as there was little to see to start with and they ate anything there was to see. The only other things we really saw were a couple of free swimming very large moray eels and plenty of different types of Spanish dancers.

Day 2

After steaming all night we arrived at the "Snake Pit" for our first two dives. Another nice dive site we worked hard into a current to get to the main bommies but were rewarded by the large pelagics attracted by the current. A large school of chevron barracuda hung in the gutter between the boat and the bommies. We then waited at the bommies for the action and saw passing Spanish mackerel, eaglerays and a few of the olive sea snakes the site was named after. On the way back to the boat we had a giggle at the ditsy batfish chasing the bubbles of the divers half way to the surface.

We then headed off for one of the icon dive sites of the trip - the cod hole - which unsurprisingly was famous for its large, friendly potato cod. After 20 minutes of searching on the first dive we were getting somewhat nervous that they were not going to show up. Clearly someone had forgotten to book the cod in for this time slot!!

When we finally turned around to go back towards the boat our first cod showed up. He was large but not as big as I had been thinking. I think he was rather impressed with Amber's dome port and the fact that he could see himself in it as he stuck very close to her. Then when we got back to the boat there were several large ones hanging around there along with red bass and schools of trevally using the boat as shelter.

On the second dive we only found the one cod. Other noted highlight included:
· a solitary rather large bump-head parrot fish
· a black-tip and white-tip reef shark
· a large great barracuda
· a few enormous clams that largest I have seen in years

Day 3

Overnight we had steamed out to the coral sea and the early morning dive was on a very pretty dramatic site out at Osprey Reef called Admiralty Anchor. Large coral bommies with very healthy coral growing on them with valleys between them, making pretty swim through. This included a long swim- through which a large admiralty anchor sits inside which the site is named after. Not masses of fish but lots of trevally, blue spot, giant and Black Jack and also some juvenile queen fish hanging around the surface.
The second dive site after breakfast was called Halfway and was on a wall which dropped away really deep. We moored up and swam down to the wall starting at about 20m this site was possibly prettier than the last due to all the soft corals and fans on the wall. There were gullies which ran up perpendicular to the wall which had lots of swim throughs. Along with much better viz - 30 to 40m - more plentiful fish life at this site with lots of species of anthias; square spot, purple and purple queen. Along the gullies were white tip reef sharks resting in the sand and blue spot trevally trawling up and down. On the second dive we saw a nice little school of quite large bump head parrot fish.

Aquability, MIke Ball scuba diving trip May 2011

Shark feed

Our final dive of the trip was the one we had all been waiting for - the shark feed. As we jumped in the water to rush down and grab prime position the sharks were already gathering, circling out in the blue in anticipation of what was to come. The site was a large "corner" in the reef with a bommie in front of it like a work table in the middle of a kitchen. We gather against the reef wall in a line and waited for action which had pretty much already started. On the bommies was a line down which the rubbish bin of food was dragged from the surface. The lower the bin got the more the sharks gathered, as the bin circled around the sharks continued to gather getting closer and closer. They were white tips, black tips, grey whalers and in the distance some shy but interested silver tip sharks. Also prominent on the scene and happy to push the sharks aside were a pair of very large potato cods. In addition to this there were tonnes of other fish gathering around to try and take advantage of a small piece of the action. When the bin was open it was all over and done with rather quickly and the sharks dispersed but circled around just in case. It was refreshing not only to see so many sharks but so many healthy sharks. As soon as we surfaced after the dive Brendan exclaimed "are they serious!!! Did you see how close those sharks came??? Very cool!!!"
Join us for our New Year trip leaving December 20111
Mike Ball trip News Year's Eve 2011
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