Busselton Jetty and Cape Naturaliste

I have just spent the last 3 days diving a beautiful part of the South West of  Western Australia with my buddy Will In't Veld, and while we did spear some fish the highlight of the trip was diving Busselton Jetty.
On the first day we started out on Wright's Bank but decided due to the visibility and increasing swell that we should move closer to the protection of the Cape. We found some ground slightly East of Cape Naturaliste and immediately found good fish. I managed a reasonable sized Blue Groper and a Breaksea Cod. Will bagged a jumbo Crayfish and we generally just poked around exploring. We also saw lots of juvenile Western Australian Jewfish which is a good sign for the future.
Late in the afternoon on the way back to the Dunborough boat ramp, we stopped at Castle Rock and took the opportunity to shoot some video and photos in the shallow clear water around the rock.
Later that night and after checking the Weather forecast for the following morning we decided we would take the opportunity to dive Busselton Jetty and take more photos and video. As was forecast the wind was howling out of the Southwest providing good conditions to dive the jetty as it is very well protected being on the Northern shore of Geographe Bay.
We launched the boat at the ramp slightly East of the Jetty and anchored in a sand patch about 50 meters off the end of the Jetty. Upon entering the water we were greeted by crystal clear water and Skippy swimming in small schools. On reaching the Jetty itself we were amazed at the amount of soft coral and sponges growing on the old Jetty Piles. We were pleased to see that when the jetty had been repaired in the past the old piles had been left in place providing a wonderful artificial reef. There are also a jumble of old piles, hawsers and pipes on the bottom that were no doubt thrown overboard during long past days when ships docked at the jetty. I was pleased to see that all the rubbish including bicycles, lawnmowers and shopping carts that were so common on my last dive there had been removed. Later out over the sand and weed patches I found a small pile of coal, probably the remains of a bag lost long ago and the bag having rotted away. If you ever find yourself in the Southwest town of Busselton with some spare time and your dive gear do yourself a favor and explore the seaward end of the Jetty, we used a boat but there is a small landing about 100 yards back from the end for divers to access the water. I think you will be more than pleased you did.

Soft corals growing on Jetty Piles

Soft corals growing on Jetty Piles.

Small fish hiding in the coral.
All  above photos taken under Busselton jetty with a GoPro in picture mode.

Old safety rail.

A Moonlighter.

Old Piles cut below the surface.

Old Riveted Iron Tank.

All above photos taken with Nikon coolpix 5100.

I was going through some older photos from last year when I came across this one of my friend
Greg Pickering.

Greg Pickering with  an Amberjack.

The story behind the picture is this, Greg found a small lump on an old chart and plotted the lat and long then punched it into his hand held GPS. He called me and asked if I was interested in looking at a lump that was 87km yes that's right 87km offshore. I said that I was and started packing my gear to leave that afternoon. The plan was to drive to our launch site and camp on the beach overnight, then check on the weather forecast first thing before making a final decision on whether to go or not. We drove up with Rob Ernst and camped overnight then departed at around 5am the next morning. We found the lump without a problem after traveling for nearly 3 hours and were eager to jump in. On entering the water we were met by reasonable visibility and plenty of fish of all types. We each landed a few good fish and when Greg dived for the last time I knew he was on a good fish by the length of time he was under. When he surfaced he had the Amberjack in his hands, and as is so often his style it was Stoned!!!. We sorted our gear out and started on the 3 hour journey back to the beach. When we arrived on dry land we weighed the fish and Greg was very happy to see it was a new Western Australian State record of 37.75kg.
We have not revisited the lump as yet but we plan to and who knows what we will find when we do, it just goes to show what is possible when the weather and planning all come together for that one day.

Diving's Dumb things.

Last night was our dive clubs monthly meeting and as usual after all the official things were out of the way and the meeting closed the best stories started to flow. If you have ever been to a club meeting or function of any kind you will be familiar with this phenomenon. These discussions usually start with one story and develop from there, and they always have a theme. Well last nights discussion theme as you can guess from the title was diving's dumb things.
We in our club have an annual award for the dumbest thing of the year it is called the longbottom award (obviously we cant have a Darwin award as we don't want anyone to die!), and award worthy events are mentioned and minuted at each meeting. Nothing new was presented last night and so some of the old stories from before the inception of the award started to flow.

They included the following.
Numerous persons driving off with floatlines and guns still attached to the boat resulting in the loss of both line and gun.
Diver's being attacked by puffer fish, both small and giant.
A vehicle being submerged whilst at the boat ramp.
Numerous instances of lost propellers.
A carpet shark attaching it self to a divers arm, then said diver being abused by the boat driver for not getting in the boat, to which he replied I cant this things too f#@king heavy.
A younger diver holding a knife by the blade to then have his brother grab it by the handle and yank it away resulting in a trip to the ER. Oh but wait this gets better, The young brothers were accompanied by their Mother to the ER, where they happened upon the previously mentioned carpet shark victim having his arm attended to, and the identity of the abusive boat driver was none other than their Father.
A diver spearing a Jobfish and then handing it to the boat driver only to have it latch on to the boat drivers hand putting teeth through finger nails!!!!
A diver spearing a shark only to have it turn and bite another diver(this happened more than once in days gone by).
A diver on seeing a penguin asked another diver if he should spear it, the diver answered why? its a penguin to which the first diver replied but no one will believe I saw it if I don't have it. The penguin escaped.
A diver being warned by a ranger for having his dog in the boat close to a marine national park, to which he replied "If you are worried about her eating all your fish forget it she's no that good a swimmer and we cant get a mask that fits her".

The list goes on.
It got me to thinking what dumb things have you done or seen?

Where are the Fish?

I took my son out yesterday to Rottnest and we dived all along the North side, well we tried to dive. The current was raging and it was impossible to stay anchored and dive. This would not have been so much of a problem if we had an extra diver as we could have drifted but just being the two of us ruled drifting out. We ended up on the Northeast corner out about 3km in about 50ft of water.
We cut up 4 big buff as berley and only succeeded in having 1 small Inkytail shark pay us a quick visit. The water was about 2 degrees warmer than usual so I am wondering if this has sent all the fish into a sulk. The only decent fish I did see and they were only small ones was a couple of Baldchin Groper.

Again after much complaining about getting out of bed and the usual teenage grumpy morning mood Jack had a reasonable day and managed a nice Goldspot Sweetlips from about 45ft. I didn't get the whole sequence in video but I got a good scene of him making for the surface after the shot.

Later in the day on the way home we decided to stop on a shallow reef for a bit of a cool down swim and a quick look around. I had been in the water less than a minute when a Manta Ray complete with 3 remora fish swam past me in about 10ft of water. It was a nice end to an otherwise uneventful day.

Trying to film someone spearing fish.

Now that I have the new boat, the water has cleared up a little and the wind has backed off for a day or two I decided I would try and film my son spearing some fish. Simple task you would think, well not so. First you have to get a teenager out of bed and ready to go out, then trying to explain what you are attempting to do and getting them to cooperate is another matter entirely.

So after getting him out of bed and having had breakfast we launched the boat. We then headed out to a local reef with the intention of spearing some dinner and filming Jack shoot the fish. The visibility was not the best and the water was overly warm for this time of year. But after 5 attempts we finally managed to get a half decent sequence of Jack spearing a Sweep, even though you cant see the fish when he shoots. Oh well we will see what we can get next time we get out. I did however see a number of baby Dhu Fish and a lot of small Western Rock Lobster so things are at least looking good for the future.

The weather does not look the best for the next few days but that suits me fine as it will give me a chance to continue fitting out the boat, and do a bit of maintenance on my gear.