Last Tuesday I headed down to Portsea pier to dive with a guy from England who was chasing some weedy sea dragon shots. On the way down we stopped at Koonya back beach and to my surprise we found the following conditions. If you ever come across or are wondering when is a good time to dive, look at this picture. Note the lack of swell, no whitecaps and no shore break. All of this adds up to perfect back beach diving and the good vis also helps. Note in the photo you can see the sandy patches and the dark areas are the reef. Commonly known as the spot's where the cray's hide. Arriving at Portsea we had a slight chop on the surface with the North wind which was expected.
The reason the ocean was flat was the winds were northerly. With Northerly winds come calmer oceans generally opening up the back beaches. As the warmer water hits keep your eyes open and try some back beach diving. Once we got in the water we only had about a two minute wait and we found a sea dragon. After about 200 shots we moved of back towards the pier, without knowing the tide was flooding and was pushing gently away from the pier. We got back to the pier and straight away got another one so more shots again. We headed down the pier and took some shots of the school of globefish at the end before heading around to the end in search of more sea dragons. Luckily we found some other things to share the dive. Southern fiddler ray, squid, octopus, scallops and several blue lined goatfish. We finished our dive after about 80 minutes with his memory card full and a huge smile on his face.
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