divegirl

We headed out to Shellharbour today to do some diving at The Gutter. There was quite a bit of swell which didn’t make the dive much fun. We saw a big bull ray on the way back, which is one of the resident bull rays that seem to patrol the area. The dive itself wasn’t very interesting. However we were overly cautious and didn’t do much exploring as the last time we went diving in The Gutter (which was also the first time we went diving at that site) we nearly ran out of air and was faced with a long swim back to the entrance.

After lunch we decided we would do our second dive at the Gravel Loader. I was a bit daunted at having to swim out quite far to get to the first set of pylons. The entry and exit is just off the boat ramp. There were lots of guys going out spear fishing.

The swim out was quite uneventful. And the underwater landscape is quite barren getting to the pylons. Apparently there are lots of rock shelfs to explore but I think that is if you went directly out from the boatramp, whereas we turned left and headed out to the pylons.

Once we got close to the pier structure we descended. We followed the advice of one of the spear fishermen, who is also a diver, and took a course between the pylons on either side of the structure.

It was a pretty amazing dive. The pier structure is quite imposing and it is dark under the pier. There were loads of interesting things to see. Each pylon had a covering of barnacles and other growth. There were schools of very large puffer fish and at the end of the pylon, we saw about 5 or 6 giant calamari. They were amazing, I’d never seen them so large before. It was great hovering in front of them and watching them change colour. There was also one pylon in particular with a column of about 50 old wives - one of the most amazing things I’ve seen. I’m not sure why they were congregated in a column like that.

I would love to go back with an underwater camera to take pictures. It would be best if I had a strobe like one of the divers we passed. That may have to wait a while.