In December 2010 after a fabulous drive along the Great Ocean Road, Mary, Hannah and I enjoyed two dives in Portsea with The Dive Victoria Group - a friendly and helpful organisation that I would be very pleased to dive with again. Our dive guide Fred Headley was outstanding.
Our first dive was under Portsea Pier. Almost two hours south-east of Melbourne this was one of Victoria’s most popular beaches. However according to locals, most of Portsea’s beach has disappeared over the previous 18 months, this allegedly caused by channel deepening. Apparently 15 metres of the beach had been washed away around the Portsea Pier and 50 trees also disappeared. The beach erosion was obvious and I saw for myself the large swell on an incoming tide. Local divers said that Portsea Pier had been one of the best dive sites in the bay. But no longer. Nevertheless I still saw many Weedy Sea Dragons – more than on any single dive before. I like to think that only the poor visibility, natural shyness of the Dragons and their relatively small size prevented me from getting some excellent shots. Well I can convince myself. I had the opportunity to photograph a sea bird underwater but as has happened on the three occasions I had seen one before, my reflexes were just too slow. I suddenly saw it. And it was just as suddenly gone. We also saw a Bull Ray, a Cuttlefish, Pufferfish and many Nudibranch. After an hour Mary and Hannah indicated that they were beginning to feel cold so Fred took us back to the shore.
Our second dive was also at Portsea Pier although this time mostly to one side of the pier on a small reef which bluntly was pretty disappointing. I did see a Weedy Sea Dragon and a few Crabs but the visibility was poor and the surge annoying. Hannah and Mary felt cold after a while and Fred took them back to the pier. There he spotted a Yellow Crested Weedfish and raced back to show me. I took one shot of the fish. Possibly my flash gun startled it but it shot off, which was a great shame as I would have loved to got a good image of this rarely-seen subject. However I did get a photograph of a Stargazer thanks once again to Fred’s eagle eye.