Latest Dive Reviews

"Well, the weather wasn't really playing ball, with strong northerlies for the previous week, and still forecast for the dive day, so James changed the venue to something a little more suitable than the programmed Nord. Black Rock, under Brown Mountain on its Eastern side, and just outside Safety Cove, was the new venue.

5 divers turned up for the day, with Jon (Bryan) driving down from Launceston for the day. Now that's keen.

The wind was about 10 knots as we headed down Safety Cove, and conditions looked good, as we had off shore winds and a low swell forecast. On arrival at Black Rock, however, the swell was somewhat larger than forecast, at about 2m+. This was causing a reasonable surge on the rock.

None of us had dived this site before, but James had very good reports of it. The northern, outside, wall was reputed to be the best spot. The rock is large, and extends maybe 10m above the water. It drops off quickly underwater to 50+m depth. There is a ridge at 20m running east from the rock.

After watching the waves for a while, James decided that doing deco in that swell didn't appeal to him. John was happy to sit it out and I decided to wimp out too. I determined that it would be very surgy until quite deep, and I wasn't keen to do deco in those conditions. Andrew and Stefan were happy to give it a go though, and so we started trolling for that 20m ridge. This proved somewhat illusive, and took about 20 minutes to find. We dropped a shot on it and then drifted whilst the boys got kitted up. They were almost ready to go when we realised that the shot had moved off station, and so we had to lift it, refind that reef, and drop it again. Finally all was good, and in they went.
We other three had a pleasant time eating, looking at the stunning scenery of Tasman Island, Cape Raoul and the cliffs, and chatting, until pick up time, some 45 minutes later. Andrew and Stefan reported a dive to 55m onto sand, with stunning drop off and good life IF they could have seen it properly. Unfortunately visibility was poor, with suspension in the water (Algae?). It was also very surgy until past 30m depth.
Still, they had an interesting dive and reported a location that would be awesome in good conditions.
A place to go onto the "watch for suitable weather" list.

Next we moved back inside the cove to a reef running out from the northern side of Brown Mountain. James has dived this reef before and liked it a lot. Some more time was spent finding the reef and dropping the shot. Then Jon, James and I dropped in. We started the dive together and descended a sheer wall covered in Yellow Zoanthids before arriving at the bottom in about 30m. The terraine was interesting with boulders and rock ridges. Plenty of corals and swarms of Butterfly Perch greeted us. It was a lovely dive site. Unfortunately the visibility was mediocre, at about 10m. The surge was evident down to 30m, and quite strong at 20m and above.

We stayed together for a while, and then I waved the rebreather boys off as they headed for a slightly longer dive than I intended.
I had planned to spend a while in the 20-25m range on the way up but the surge was quite uncomfortable and gave little opportunity to look at anything unless I held on well, so I completed a little deco and finished the dive after 45 minutes.
This is another excellent dive site and I look forward to returning to it in better conditions. The walls would look terrific in good visibility.

Andrew and Stefan decided not to do a second dive, so when Jon and James surfaced we headed for home.

This was a great day out, with good company, despite mediocre dive conditions.

What a stunning place we live for boating and diving.

"
By Janine McKinnon

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