Date: Sunday 3 July 2011
Location: South Road
Divers: Peter, Rob, Andrew
Water Temp: 11 C
Visibility: 3-5 m
Depth: up to 6.1 m
Wind: Northerly about 40 km/hr

The Open Water Course braved a howling northerly wind to complete two dives towards their certification. When we arrived at the car park it was obvious we made the right decision. The visibility was a reasonable 5m and only 30 cm surface waves lapping the shoreline, which was in sharp contrast to Blairgowrie Pier (our normal training site) which according to others had 1m whitecaps and less than 1 m of visibility. Once underwater there was minimal current and no surge to speak of. Some of the marine life spotted on the two dives were a blue ringed octopus, saw sea stars -including the Northern Pacific Sea Star- sea urchins, nudibranchs, small crabs and a few fish. I am sure that there was much more to see but we had to concentrate on the skills we needed to demonstrate for the dive.

This is one dive site that is often overlooked in preference to sites at the bottom of the bay, which I think is a shame. An aerial view of the dive site shows extensive reef to explore and when the water warms up I will be going back. The thing I have learnt from diving on Sunday is no matter what the conditions are like, Melbourne has a dive site suitable for the conditions. We just need to think outside the usual suspects.

Andrew