Exmouth Diving report - West Side Thursday 1 July 2010

We've started July with a couple of dives on the West Side as Lighthouse Bay wasn't accessible due to wind and swell. Central Station gave us a special dive with not only the usual creatures like turtles, schools of threadfin pearl perch, stingrays and moray eels but also a huge potato cod. We spent quite a bit of time enjoying the show that seven big beautiful manta rays put on for us over one of the cleaning stations. It was completely enthralling to watch them circle, lightly rub each others' wings, swim oh-so-close to our noses and then glide up towards the surface to bask in the rays of sunlight streaming through the blue water.
WATER TEMP: 24C
VISIBILITY: 15+m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 16m

We couldn't dive our second site as there was a raging current, so we packed up and headed a little bit north to a new site instead. Lots and lots of fish: parrotfish, butterflyfish, angelfish, trevally, barracuda, convict surgeons, tangs and damsels. We also saw a couple of turtles swimming away, some octopus trying to look inconspicuous and a variety of colourful nudibranchs scattered over the very cool hard coral reef structures.
WATER TEMP: 24C
VISIBILITY: 15m
CURRENT: mild
SURGE: slight
DEPTH: 15m