Tumby Bay was my first port of call on my 2019 4000 kilometre month long South Australian road trip. My journey began on Easter Friday in Nelson Bay, NSW. Before departing I had to eject a sneaky stowaway, Bella my border collie, from a rather overloaded Landcruiser. With 8 tanks and a lot of spare dive kit and camera equipment there was no room for Bella. My drive south-west took me through Dubbo, Broken Hill and Port Augusta, then down the eastern coast of Eyre Peninsula to Tumby Bay just 45 kilometres north of Port Lincoln. 

I was there to dive Tumby Bay Jetty. Or more accurately the new Tumby Bay Jetty, a dive site which is well known for Leafy Sea Dragons. The original jetty had been constructed in 1874 but following safety concerns was taken down in 1999 with its replacement being constructed just to the south of it. 

I had dived the new jetty in 2014. Dive conditions had been perfect and although the Leafies were not easy to find, it just required time to find them. I expected much the same on this revisit. However despite searching for almost three hours I did not see a single one. 

Later I spoke to Andrew Fox of Rodney Fox Dive Expeditions who told me that it had been quite a while since a Leafy had been spotted at the new jetty. It felt pointless trying again. It was suggested that I try searching the remains of the original jetty but with diving conditions steadily deteriorating I abandoned this dive at the last minute.