BY Narooma News

The generally unfavourable weather over the past month or so has meant that there hasn’t been much diving and thus not much to put in the dive log.
We did manage another night dive under the Narooma Town Wharf just before Christmas.

Once again our torches probed the darkness, lighting up a busy and strange world of scuttling crabs and shrimps, octopus hiding in their lairs, moray eels poking their heads out of holes and sleeping fish everywhere amid a rich collection of creatures attached to the pylons and rocks feeding on planktonic life passing by in the current.

The highlight for me was finding a large decorator crab.

I managed to take a good photo of this creature, but there is hardly any point in showing this to anyone as it is so perfectly camouflaged that it is totally invisible.

These characters do not have a colour or shape of their own to conceal themselves, but instead attach pieces of weed all over their shells so that they blend in completely with their surroundings.

The downside of the dive was that the water was amazingly cold for the time of year - just 14 degrees.

I came out shivering and was quick to get into the car and switch on the heater.

On Christmas Eve, two of us had a shore dive at Potato Point but were disappointed at the poor visibility that had resulted from the rough weather.

While it was one of the least enjoyable dives at this site, we still saw a few things of interest, including three magnificent eagle rays swimming together, two wobbegong sharks and a Port Jackson shark.

Last weekend, we began a cooperative venture with Darryl Stuart of Narooma Charters in which we are trying to get a better handle on the numbers of endangered grey nurse sharks visiting the aggregation site at the north end of Montague Island.

Last year sightings were rare but this year a group of club divers had already spotted a grey nurse on a dive with Rhys Kenna of Montague Island Diving on December 27.

So on Saturday Paul McKay and I descended into the shark gutter, along with a group of visiting divers from Melbourne.

Around us were huge boulders sloping steeply to a sandy bottom at nearly 30 metres.

On the way we passed an acoustic monitoring device placed in the water to monitor tagged sharks.

The waters were filled with the usual Montague Island residents - wrasses, morwong, leatherjackets, old wives and huge schools of yellowtail, one spot pullers, mado and silver sweep.

Suddenly in the distance, I spotted the unmistakeable silhouette of a Grey Nurse tail fin.

I headed off after it but didn’t get any closer - obviously chasing a shark is a rather fruitless exercise.

Fortunately, our Melbourne buddies had a much closer sighting and reported at least two sharks, one a large male of three metres and one of just over one metre.

To complete the first dive in good style, we came across 17 young Port Jackson sharks and two spotted wobbegongs.

After a break, we did a dive with the acrobatic Australian Fur Seals, who it has to be said were a bit lazy on the day. Two or three came to check us out but most of them ignored us.

Nevertheless we still had a great encounter with them.

We also took the opportunity to do a fish count as part of a survey program the club is involved with through the National Parks Association of NSW.

All in all a busy day. Our thanks to Darryl Stuart and Narooma Charters for this opportunity.

Anyone interested in joining the dive club or learning to dive, please contact Bill Barker on 4473 5304 or hri@acr.net.au.

You just have to be reasonably fit, comfortable in the water and interested in marine life.

- Bill Barker

We did manage another night dive under the Narooma Town Wharf just before Christmas.

Once again our torches probed the darkness, lighting up a busy and strange world of scuttling crabs and shrimps, octopus hiding in their lairs, moray eels poking their heads out of holes and sleeping fish everywhere amid a rich collection of creatures attached to the pylons and rocks feeding on planktonic life passing by in the current.

The highlight for me was finding a large decorator crab.

I managed to take a good photo of this creature, but there is hardly any point in showing this to anyone as it is so perfectly camouflaged that it is totally invisible.

These characters do not have a colour or shape of their own to conceal themselves, but instead attach pieces of weed all over their shells so that they blend in completely with their surroundings.

The downside of the dive was that the water was amazingly cold for the time of year - just 14 degrees.

I came out shivering and was quick to get into the car and switch on the heater.

On Christmas Eve, two of us had a shore dive at Potato Point but were disappointed at the poor visibility that had resulted from the rough weather.

While it was one of the least enjoyable dives at this site, we still saw a few things of interest, including three magnificent eagle rays swimming together, two wobbegong sharks and a Port Jackson shark.

Last weekend, we began a cooperative venture with Darryl Stuart of Narooma Charters in which we are trying to get a better handle on the numbers of endangered grey nurse sharks visiting the aggregation site at the north end of Montague Island.

Last year sightings were rare but this year a group of club divers had already spotted a grey nurse on a dive with Rhys Kenna of Montague Island Diving on December 27.

So on Saturday Paul McKay and I descended into the shark gutter, along with a group of visiting divers from Melbourne.

Around us were huge boulders sloping steeply to a sandy bottom at nearly 30 metres.

On the way we passed an acoustic monitoring device placed in the water to monitor tagged sharks.

The waters were filled with the usual Montague Island residents - wrasses, morwong, leatherjackets, old wives and huge schools of yellowtail, one spot pullers, mado and silver sweep.

Suddenly in the distance, I spotted the unmistakeable silhouette of a Grey Nurse tail fin.

I headed off after it but didn’t get any closer - obviously chasing a shark is a rather fruitless exercise.

The generally unfavourable weather over the past month or so has meant that there hasn’t been much diving and thus not much to put in the dive log.

We did manage another night dive under the Narooma Town Wharf just before Christmas.

Once again our torches probed the darkness, lighting up a busy and strange world of scuttling crabs and shrimps, octopus hiding in their lairs, moray eels poking their heads out of holes and sleeping fish everywhere amid a rich collection of creatures attached to the pylons and rocks feeding on planktonic life passing by in the current.

The highlight for me was finding a large decorator crab.

I managed to take a good photo of this creature, but there is hardly any point in showing this to anyone as it is so perfectly camouflaged that it is totally invisible.

These characters do not have a colour or shape of their own to conceal themselves, but instead attach pieces of weed all over their shells so that they blend in completely with their surroundings.

The downside of the dive was that the water was amazingly cold for the time of year - just 14 degrees.

I came out shivering and was quick to get into the car and switch on the heater.

On Christmas Eve, two of us had a shore dive at Potato Point but were disappointed at the poor visibility that had resulted from the rough weather.

While it was one of the least enjoyable dives at this site, we still saw a few things of interest, including three magnificent eagle rays swimming together, two wobbegong sharks and a Port Jackson shark.

Last weekend, we began a cooperative venture with Darryl Stuart of Narooma Charters in which we are trying to get a better handle on the numbers of endangered grey nurse sharks visiting the aggregation site at the north end of Montague Island.

Last year sightings were rare but this year a group of club divers had already spotted a grey nurse on a dive with Rhys Kenna of Montague Island Diving on December 27.

So on Saturday Paul McKay and I descended into the shark gutter, along with a group of visiting divers from Melbourne.

Around us were huge boulders sloping steeply to a sandy bottom at nearly 30 metres.

On the way we passed an acoustic monitoring device placed in the water to monitor tagged sharks.

The waters were filled with the usual Montague Island residents - wrasses, morwong, leatherjackets, old wives and huge schools of yellowtail, one spot pullers, mado and silver sweep.

Suddenly in the distance, I spotted the unmistakeable silhouette of a Grey Nurse tail fin.

I headed off after it but didn’t get any closer - obviously chasing a shark is a rather fruitless exercise.

Fortunately, our Melbourne buddies had a much closer sighting and reported at least two sharks, one a large male of three metres and one of just over one metre.

To complete the first dive in good style, we came across 17 young Port Jackson sharks and two spotted wobbegongs.

After a break, we did a dive with the acrobatic Australian Fur Seals, who it has to be said were a bit lazy on the day. Two or three came to check us out but most of them ignored us.

Nevertheless we still had a great encounter with them.

We also took the opportunity to do a fish count as part of a survey program the club is involved with through the National Parks Association of NSW.

All in all a busy day. Our thanks to Darryl Stuart and Narooma Charters for this opportunity.

Anyone interested in joining the dive club or learning to dive, please contact Bill Barker on 4473 5304 or hri@acr.net.au.

You just have to be reasonably fit, comfortable in the water and interested in marine life.

- Bill Barker

Fortunately, our Melbourne buddies had a much closer sighting and reported at least two sharks, one a large male of three metres and one of just over one metre.

To complete the first dive in good style, we came across 17 young Port Jackson sharks and two spotted wobbegongs.

After a break, we did a dive with the acrobatic Australian Fur Seals, who it has to be said were a bit lazy on the day. Two or three came to check us out but most of them ignored us.

Nevertheless we still had a great encounter with them.

We also took the opportunity to do a fish count as part of a survey program the club is involved with through the National Parks Association of NSW.

All in all a busy day. Our thanks to Darryl Stuart and Narooma Charters for this opportunity.

Anyone interested in joining the dive club or learning to dive, please contact Bill Barker on 4473 5304 or hri@acr.net.au.

You just have to be reasonably fit, comfortable in the water and interested in marine life.

- Bill Barker

We did manage another night dive under the Narooma Town Wharf just before Christmas.

Once again our torches probed the darkness, lighting up a busy and strange world of scuttling crabs and shrimps, octopus hiding in their lairs, moray eels poking their heads out of holes and sleeping fish everywhere amid a rich collection of creatures attached to the pylons and rocks feeding on planktonic life passing by in the current.

The highlight for me was finding a large decorator crab.

I managed to take a good photo of this creature, but there is hardly any point in showing this to anyone as it is so perfectly camouflaged that it is totally invisible.

These characters do not have a colour or shape of their own to conceal themselves, but instead attach pieces of weed all over their shells so that they blend in completely with their surroundings.

The downside of the dive was that the water was amazingly cold for the time of year - just 14 degrees.

I came out shivering and was quick to get into the car and switch on the heater.

On Christmas Eve, two of us had a shore dive at Potato Point but were disappointed at the poor visibility that had resulted from the rough weather.

While it was one of the least enjoyable dives at this site, we still saw a few things of interest, including three magnificent eagle rays swimming together, two wobbegong sharks and a Port Jackson shark.

Last weekend, we began a cooperative venture with Darryl Stuart of Narooma Charters in which we are trying to get a better handle on the numbers of endangered grey nurse sharks visiting the aggregation site at the north end of Montague Island.

Last year sightings were rare but this year a group of club divers had already spotted a grey nurse on a dive with Rhys Kenna of Montague Island Diving on December 27.

So on Saturday Paul McKay and I descended into the shark gutter, along with a group of visiting divers from Melbourne.

Around us were huge boulders sloping steeply to a sandy bottom at nearly 30 metres.

On the way we passed an acoustic monitoring device placed in the water to monitor tagged sharks.

The waters were filled with the usual Montague Island residents - wrasses, morwong, leatherjackets, old wives and huge schools of yellowtail, one spot pullers, mado and silver sweep.

Suddenly in the distance, I spotted the unmistakeable silhouette of a Grey Nurse tail fin.

I headed off after it but didn’t get any closer - obviously chasing a shark is a rather fruitless exercise.

Fortunately, our Melbourne buddies had a much closer sighting and reported at least two sharks, one a large male of three metres and one of just over one metre.

To complete the first dive in good style, we came across 17 young Port Jackson sharks and two spotted wobbegongs.

After a break, we did a dive with the acrobatic Australian Fur Seals, who it has to be said were a bit lazy on the day. Two or three came to check us out but most of them ignored us.

Nevertheless we still had a great encounter with them.

We also took the opportunity to do a fish count as part of a survey program the club is involved with through the National Parks Association of NSW.

All in all a busy day. Our thanks to Darryl Stuart and Narooma Charters for this opportunity.

Anyone interested in joining the dive club or learning to dive, please contact Bill Barker on 4473 5304 or hri@acr.net.au.

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