Powering up our cameras we slowly drifted from pylon to pylon seeking out subjects worthy of our photographic attention. There was not a lot of fish to be seen, just the odd blue throat wrasse or two off the eastern end of the pier, near the large concrete ferry pylons. A goat fish, a few blennies, and of course, ever present globe fish were lurking nervously. Invertebrates were far more numerous, with good growth and populations on both the pier itself and the purpose built clay pot like structures laid down in between the pylons.

When the next ferry arrived our photographic exploits were temporarily put on hold as wave after wave of silt washed through from the ferry birth. It settled down very quickly after the ferry departed, all in all the disturbance lasted no more than 10 minutes.

The departure of the ferry now gave us a window to venture out north from the pier over weed and sand beds into a more respectable 6m of water. Here we came across numerous swimmer crabs, one closely guarding his new found meal of recently deposed squid. A sparsely spotted stingaree was seen basking in the meager winter sun, and a lone sand octopus attempting to consume what we thought to be hermit crabs, made for some decent shots.

After numerous photos and close to 80 minutes in the water our fingers had succumbed to the cold and our camera buttons were becoming somewhat of a task, the next ferry was due to arrive soon, so we decided to call it and head in for some dive talk over a well deserved lunch.

Overall this was an interesting and worthwhile dive, although there was not a huge abundance of life to be found, there was enough to keep our interest and the cameras clicking away. The ferry, although a minor inconvenience, is a point of interest in itself, also adding a dynamic element to the dive plan.

Sorrento Pier - 11:26am Saturday the 3rd of July 2010
Temp: 10?C Vis: 15m+ Divers: Ben & Jason

Arriving at Sorrento around 10:40am we were immediately worried that our calculations for slack water had been in error, a short walk along the pier out over an obviously turbulent ebb stream had us thinking that we had miscalculated for sure. Whilst discussing the situation we had the chance to watch the ferry arrive from Queenscliff. This gave us a very good idea of what areas to avoid and what to expect when the next one arrived, crucial information for our dive plan.We were expecting slack water around 11:22 and, to our surprise, by the time the ferry had been and gone (11:00am) there was appreciably less flow under the pier. We hurried back to the car to suit up.

With the obligatory "It's the middle of winter, are you crazy!!" looks from passers by we donned our newly acquired dry suits along with the rest of our gear, grabbed our cameras and headed for the water. As you need a permit to jump off the pier we entered along the beach to the west side of the rock wall. It's quite shallow here, reaching about 1m in depth, a good 100m out from the waters edge. Near the end of the rock wall we stuck our fins on and snorkeled 10m further out, then descended into 3m of water under the pier. We had nailed it! There was no flow in any direction and the visibility was quite good. Given the weather over the previous week, we weren't expecting to get the 15 meters or more we had on the end of an ebb tide.