Exmouth Dive report - Lighthouse Bay Thursday 1 October 2009

Fabulous start to a brand new month here in Exmouth on the Ningaloo Reef! Humpback whales were plentiful and playful as we watched from the boat on our way to and from the dive sites. We also had great dolphins playing on the bow and in our wake as we cruised up Exmouth Gulf and as we headed to our dive sites in Lighthouse Bay. There was so much happening on the surface that it was hard to pull ourselves away to kit up!

Blizzard Ridge was full of fish life again today. The 5 lined sea perch population has expanded and there were several huge schools, each with at least 100 individuals. They formed huge walls of yellow and blue, it was impressive. White tip reef sharks, big schools of thredfin pearl perch, lots of rankin cod getting cleaned, wobbegong sharks lazing on ledges, octopus pretending to be invisible - great dive!
WATER TEMP: 22C
VISIBILITY: 8-10m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: moderate
DEPTH: 14m

Gulliver's Wall entranced us immediately with two huge manta rays putting on a spectacular show. Our PADI Open Water Course was out for their first two ocean dives and now they've been totally spoiled! The mantas circled us, rubbed a wingtip on heads, played in the bubbles, got a little scrub-a-dub-dub over the cleaning station then circled back to the divers. Needless to say we didn't cover much ground at all on this dive as everyone was riveted! We did pull ourselves away long enough to find mating octopus - always cool, more white tip reef sharks, schooling snapper, several really bright nudibranchs and a couple of big cod lolling around on the sand. Very special dive!
WATER TEMP: 22C
VISIBILITY: 8-10m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: mild
DEPTH: 14m