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Bundegi rocks! The sea breeze came in strong and early today so instead of heading around the top of the Cape to Lighthouse Bay we did two dives in the Bundegi Sanctuary Zone.
Bundegi Bommies was first up during slack tide and it was amazing. There were so many "best sightings" that it's hard to choose just one, but after a bit of an impromptu vote, we decided it had to be the 6+ foot dusky whaler cruising around! Green turtles were abundant, trevally were schooling, Spanish Mackerel were buzzing in for a closer look. Millions of colours lit up the reef from the soft corals, to nudibranchs, to damsels & butterflyfish, to gorgeous parrotfish. Blue spotted sting rays were creating huge sand storms trying to find morsels as monocle bream hovered ready to snatch tidbits from the mess. Creatures and critters galore!!
WATER TEMP: 26C
VISIBILITY: 15m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 8m
We knew the tide would start moving for dive two, so we decided to make the most of it and do this as a Bundegi Drift dive. The current was very mild at the beginning and picked up to a moderate pace at the end of the dive - just perfect. White tip reef sharks, more turtles, firefish, egg cowries, nudibranchs laying egg spirals, coral trout, moray eels...so much to see. Best sight of this dive was a baby barramundi cod - so cute with his little black polka-dots and wavy fins!
WATER TEMP: 26C
VISIBILITY: 10m
CURRENT: mild, increasing to just moderate
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 8m
The breeze is back but it didn't stop us heading out to Lighthouse Bay for a couple of active morning dives today! Blizzard Ridge was active and all of our usual suspects were there. The fusiliers must have been a whole lot dirtier than normal as there were masses of them lined up and waiting patiently for their turn at cleaning stations along the entire site. Our spearing mantis is growing again and he was sitting up tall in the mouth of his hole. Moray eels, firefish, olive sea snakes, white tip reef sharks, schools of threadfin pearl perch, bannerfish, scorpionfish, nudibranchs, shrimps - you name, today we had it. We even had a pod of dolphins!
WATER TEMP: 25C
VISIBILITY: 5-8m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: slight
DEPTH: 14m
White tip reef sharks were very active on Gulliver's today. Few were simply resting on the bottom like they often do; they were zooming around the site for our whole dive. Rankin cod and many spotted sweetlips were dominating the cleaning stations, the cleaner wrasse delving deep into the bright pink flared gills. A great school of bullseyes obscured the opening to one of the deep cutbacks on the southern end and when we parted the curtain they had created we found a group of fat sweetlip just hanging out, doing not much of anything.
WATER TEMP: 25C
VISIBILITY: 5-8m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: slight
DEPTH: 13m
Always wanted to work on the Ningaloo Reef and experience the mighty whale sharks? Now's your chance!
Exmouth Diving Centre currently has positions available for immediate start for PADI Dive Masters and PADI Instructors. We have further positions available for this upcoming Whale Shark Season with a proposed start time of mid-March.
Apply now to join our awesome crew for the 2010 season!
Email us with EMPLOYMENT 2010 in your subject line for complete details of how to apply!
Another gorgeous Sunday took us out to the northern most part of the Ningaloo Reef at the Muiron Islands. We had a full boat of divers and snorkellers today and it was one of the nicest, most fun boatloads of people you could ever hope to spend a day with.
All of the critters of Ningaloo came out to make the day very special. Jaws was teeming with rankin cod chasing millions of shiny baitfish to & fro. Nudibranchs lit up the reef while various schools of parrotfish, damsels, convict surgeons, trevally and barracuda vied for our attention.
WATER TEMP: 24C
VISIBILITY: 8-12m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: mild
DEPTH: 15m
Keyhole looked like someone had bought all the neon in the country and plopped it in the ocean - the stalks of soft coral looked lit from within. It was pretty spectacular, even for those of us who are used to the colour on this site. Small white tip reef sharks languidly circled on the sand patches, every now and then settling onto the sand and allowing small cleaner wrasse to dart out to them. Lionfish had their wings spread while resting on small shelves in the reef and moorish idol pairs weaved in irregular courses on their way to some place else. This was a great dive for just watching all of the different fish go about their daily business. And a big ol' turtle lorded over his empire from a little rise. As we swam close to him he kept one eye on us, but otherwise barely acknowledged our presence.
WATER TEMP: 24C
VISIBILITY: 8m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: mild
DEPTH: 12m
Turtle Bay had awesome snorkelling along with an exhilarating current that sped us along over the tops of the reef. Sharks, blue spotted rays, more schools of convict surgeons, hundreds of christmas tree worms, bannerfish, parrotfish, firefish, eels - today was a creature-fest!
Boy, is it humid today after the showers & squalls early last night! Underwater is definitely the place to be today. Our repeating divers wanted to hit Blizzard Ridge again so we headed there for dive one. They weren't disappointed as there seem to be even more fish in all the schools than there have been the past two days. One of the resident giant morays eels was out and about, slithering his way up the ridge and then relaxing in a deep hole while teensy transparent shrimps ran up and down his face. The firefish were off their ledges and hanging out against the blue with their fins spread wide.
WATER TEMP: 23C
VISIBILITY: 10m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: slight
DEPTH: 14m
100s & 1000s had tons of baitfish, many brightly coloured parrotfish, abundant nudibranchs, the cutest small turtle, big batfish and curious octopus. A gorgeously garish painted cray had almost his whole front half out in the open. One of those dives with one cool thing after another!
WATER TEMP: 23C
VISIBILITY: 10m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: slight
DEPTH: 12m
More hot, calm weather for us today! Blizzard Ridge was first up and the long-nose snapper were everywhere. Fusiliers were lining up in droves to get a thorough cleaning for a big weekend - sometimes the cleaner wrasse would almost disappear in the fusilier's mouth, they'd go so far in it looked like they could be swallowed! Nudibranchs galore - everywhere we looked there were two or three different species all in the vicinity of each other. Wobbegongs were out on top of the ridge and tucked under ledges.
WATER TEMP: 23C
VISIBILITY: 12m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 14m
Labyrinth was Turtle Central again today. Turtles snoozing, swimming, taking a big breath, checking out the divers and just generally doing turtle things. A couple were having their shells cleaned by a variety of small fish. Lots of tiny shrimp bouncing around on the bubble corals and hiding down in the anemones. Batfish were dominating the cleaning stations, but a few pushy rankin cod took a turn, too. A cheeky octopus tried to fool us by pretending to be all sorts of things other than an octopus. He's probably still there showing off!
WATER TEMP: 23C
VISIBILITY: 12m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 13m
It felt great to head back around into Lighthouse Bay after so long! Blizzard Ridge was first up and the schooling perch & snapper were solid walls through the whole centre section of the site. Olive sea snakes were checking out little holes for something to eat and moray eels of various sizes were well out of their own holes, many with tiny transparent cleaner shrimps attending to them. There was lots of colour today: pink anthias, neon blue damsels, red cardinalfish, green parrotfish, yellow buterflyfish, purple goatfish and a whole rainbow of nudibranchs. Woohoo! We love diving!
WATER TEMP: 23C
VISIBILITY: 12-15m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 14m
Gulliver's also had huge schools of snapper and sea perch today. Five white tip reef sharks lazed on the sand while cleaner wrasse darted all over them. Pink anemonefish were feeling brave and dancing around several feet away from their tentacled homes. A dozen big barracuda came in for a fly-by of the divers, disappeared into the blue and then about ten minutes later came in for another one from a different direction - it was pretty cool!
WATER TEMP: 23C
VISIBILITY: 12-15m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 13m
Woohoo!! No wind! Finally. It's been blowing a gale here since the end of last week and we are sick and tired of it. We're ready for this spell of no wind, beautiful temperatures and fabulous sea conditions that the forecasters are promising us.
We got back into our diving routine by hitting Whalebone out at the Muiron Islands. Unfortunately, things were still pretty stirred up so the visibility wasn't great. Fortunately, the fish don't care and we still had a great dive. Heaps of schooling baitfish are thick on several areas of the site, including in the swim-thrus. Enormous estuary cod cruised right alongside us for ages then veered off into the murk. Lots of good sized barracuda were patrolling and we saw more brilliant green parrotfish chomping the reef than usual. We couldn't see very far on this dive, but boy were there a lot of fish around!
WATER TEMP: 23C
VISIBILITY: 3-5m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: mild
DEPTH: 13m
Knowing that most of the sites on the west side of the Muiron Islands were going to suffer from similar visibility, we decided to have an early-ish lunch, do a big snorkel through Turtle Bay and then hit East Side Bommies for dive two. It was like being in a different ocean. Beautiful blue water and even more action both on the snorkel and on the second dive.
East Side Bommies gave us turtles, blue spotted stingrays, white tip reef sharks, barracuda, trevally, schooling drummers, schooling convict surgeons, nudibranchs, batfish, bannerfish, moorish idoals, more big cods, bright orange coral cods, heaps of goatfish and more bright yellow butterflyfish (of several varities) than you could keep track of. Fabulous dive to end the day!
WATER TEMP: 23C
VISIBILITY: 10m
CURRENT: mild
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 8m
This is what was waiting for us when we got to the dive shop to get ready for the day's diving. Someone has left their dog locked in one of our trailers.
We don't know whose dog it is and Doggie isn't wearing a collar. He's very frightened & stressed: tail tucked way down between his legs, growls whenever a man comes near the trailer and gives me cautious, hopeful looks when I get close. He doesn't like to look at you and tries to stay away.
Whoever left him did put a dish of water in with him, at least. I fed him a couple of slices of ham that he ate eagerly after oh, so very gently taking it from my fingers. He seems to be a good boy.
We are keeping an eye on him as there's no shade over the trailer and we are hoping his owner comes soon. Thankfully it's nice and cool with a breeze blowing so he should be pretty comfortable for the morning - if laying in a steel trailer by yourself can ever be considered comfortable. Of course, now that I write this, he's crying & throwing himself against the sides of the trailer.
Poor Doggie.
If he's yours, please come get him or at least ring us on 1201 to let us know you remember you left him here. If you know whose he is, please contact the owner.
Update: Well, it started to get hot, especially on the floor of the trailer, so Dave and I teamed up and got a lead on Doggie. He wasn't that excited about it, but finally gave in and jumped out. We hooked him up to a tree with lots of shade, a nice place to kip and a big bowl of water. I went back across the road, answered the phone, looked out the door and the cheeky QUICK) bugger had chewed through the lead and was gone.
So now there's a boy dog wandering around Exmouth with a girlie pink collar with bones on it (and a dangling bit of red leash). If you see him, I'd really like the collar back :)
We sincerely hope that he's done what our Girls would do - walk back home on his own.
Such a beautiful day! We started at Whalebone today and our little reindeer wrasse was busily wafting here, there and everywhere in greeting. It was pretty surgey and all of the big shiny schools of baitfish were riding the swells - five feet one way, pause, five feet back. It was excellent fun! Lots of coral trout and rankin cod were tucked down low, right up against the reef. Nudibranchs, hermit crabs and tiny eels were scattered over the top of the coral heads. Multiple schools of yellow convict surgeons soared up and over ridges, then disappeared over the other side of the ridge on the next swell - cool to watch! The big swim-thru was almost completely sheltered from teh surge and the water was crystal blue as we made our way through shimmering curtains of glassfish.
WATER TEMP: 26C
VISIBILITY: 6-8m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: strong to moderate
DEPTH: 13m
We headed around to the east side of South Muiron Island for a big snorkel in Turtle Bay - lots of turtles, reef sharks, anemonefish, schooling convict surgeons, big angelfish, blue spotted stingrays & more - and some lunch & lazing in the sunshine.
After lunch we headed south to check out East Side Bommies. Stunning dive! Juvenile lionfish, stingrays getting cleaned, an enormous turtle, black tip reef sharks, nudibranchs, big schools of drummers & trevally, parrotfish muching on the reef, giant trevally buzzing the divers. One of those dives where there's so much happening you can't keep up!
WATER TEMP: 26C
VISIBILITY: 15m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 8m
Glorious. A simply glorious day with just a hint of breeze to take the boiling out of the 46C day, blue water, masses of action everywhere. Basically a perfect day to trek out to the Muiron Islands for some excellent diving and snorkelling.
Whalebone was aglow with colour and so many parrotfish it was crazy. Butterflyfish and angelfish were also ridiculously abundant and a few big coral trout were hiding under ledges with their electric blue spots glowing like they were plugged in! We were cruising down one canyon and suddenly everything went dark - and then there were a zillion tiny shimmering points of silver. There were so many of these teensy baitfish that you could not see your buddy. Then poof! they disappeared again and the light came back! Mesmerising! Later in the dive we had the coolest reindeer wrasse flitting erratically over a big leather coral that he has clearly staked out as his territory.
WATER TEMP: 23C
VISIBILITY: 15m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: mild
DEPTH: 13m
Keyhole was awesome, too. In addition to all of the brightly coloured fish that are usual on this site, several well camouflaged wobbegongs were right out in the open, lounging on the limestone without a care in the world. Some good sized rankin cod gave us the squinty eye and a school of small barracuda popped in, circled us at a distance and then swam off again.
WATER TEMP: 23C
VISIBILITY: 15m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: mild
DEPTH: 10m
The conditions on both sides of the Islands were simply perfect, but we decided to trek into Turtle Bay to see some turtle tracks on the beach and check out any late mating action. Not only did we have turtles, but also a huge shovelnose ray was lounging on the sand, right where we jumped in for our snorkel! Awesome way to work off our huge lunch!
Ah so much nicer today! The wind and chop have settled down and the tides have taken most of the dirty water away. We started today at Gulliver's and descended the mooring straight into a school of about 50 snapper. They weren't shy and barely made room for us! Our resident Harlequin shrimp pair is now a single mom - no sign of her mate but there are some very tiny babies and it appears that she also still has some eggs. The white tip reef sharks were being lazy in the sand and wobbegong sharks were tucked up tight under small ledges, a couple only had the curls of their tails showing. It was a really good dive!
WATER TEMP: 22C
VISIBILITY: 10m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: mild
DEPTH: 13m
Turtles, Turtles, Turtles! That's what our divers wanted to see so we dropped in at Labyrinth for dive two. And had 5 turtles in the first 13 minutes! Turtle #6 was snoozing in a crack in the reef and as we came in for a closer look he arched his neck over wanting a scratch. He accepted a brief one, then oh-so-very-slowly swam up towards the surface - but stopped at about 7m and came right back down to one of our divers and proceeded to rub his head, flipper and belly on her outstretched hand. It was an amazing experience that not many get to have! We also had schools of sea perch, a few white tip reef sharks, lots of big batfish getting cleaned, nudibranchs & egg spirals, tons of shrimp gobies outside their holes as bulldozer shrimp cleaned house and more raccoon butterflyfish than we've seen in ages - they seemed to be wafting in pairs wherever we looked. Fabulous dive!
WATER TEMP: 22C
VISIBILITY: 10m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: mild
DEPTH: 12m
More choppy conditions today as we headed out to the Muiron Islands for the last time in 2009. We started at Cod Spot and despite relatively low visibility, we had a great dive with tons of medium sized cod using the murky water to stealthily stalk they prey. There were glorious patches of streaming sunshine sporadically throughout our dive and the rainbow colours of soft corals, sea fans, sponges & leather corals burst out at us. Small white tip reef sharks cruised just on the edge of vision and schools of surgeonfish were tucked under every ledge. It was a great day for small stuff - nudibranchs were abundant and there were lots of bright pink egg spirals swaying in the very gentle surge.
WATER TEMP: 22C
VISIBILITY: 4-6m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: mild
DEPTH: 16m
The wind picked up and the seas got rougher by the time were back on the boat so we ducked around to the east side of the island to find some calmer water. Turns out the wind was coming from that direction, too! We tucked in at East Side Bommies for dive two and a relaxing lunch. East Side Bommiees is always action packed and today we had trevally, reef sharks, blue spotted sting rays, big schools of convict surgeons, enormous parrotfish, scorpionfish, a big moray hiding under a ledge and 100s of different coloured Christmas Tree worms. This is a terrific site as it's made up of 1000s of small coral bommies and each one has something a little different living around it.
WATER TEMP: 22C
VISIBILITY: 8-10m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: mild
DEPTH: 8m
