Another Great Rotto Weekender

Leaving Hillarys on Friday evening on the Southern Image I thought "this crossing sure is better than the last time. There were no whitecaps in the marina."

I skipped the night dive on Friday since I'd had a couple of Friday night beers and was comfortably warm and dry.

We anchored up in Longreach bay for the night sheltering from the front that came through in the wee small hours. The next morning i had the pleasure of donning a dry wetsuit while everyone else complained about theirs being cold and wet. We jumped in at "in and out". Vis was down quite a bit and some of us didn't find the swim through. The water temp was a chilly 18 degrees. It certainly was refreshing and a good way to wakeup.

After we were all out we headed over to Thompsons bay to pick up Adam and enjoyed a huge breakfast of bacon and eggs. Luke, with some mischievous agenda known only to himself decided to circumnavigate the island. Perhaps it was to impress us with his boat driving abilities as it was rather exposed and there was some big swell. I was very pleased that I’d remembered to pop a kwell just after breakfast before leaving Thompson Bay. Having satisfied himself that the vis wasn’t really much better in the exposed areas (there was a justifiable reason!) we headed back to a bit of shelter. Dropped in at a site that we named Little Blue. Bit of a cryptic name but had something to do with a partially inflated safety sausage that went up so we could see how far from the boat that diver had got. Other suggestions for that site were “big swim” and some references to limp sausages. Haha
Boom was the next site and it was here that three of us met up with a large hawksbill turtle. He eventually came to the surface to say hello to those who hadn’t dived.

Adam wanted to do a night dive since he’d missed the previous night and try out a dry suit. Since no one else wanted to get cold and wet again, I offered to go and aren’t I glad I did. After 30 mins of being bashed around, not taking a single photo and becoming colder and colder I was ready to call it off. Quite lucky I couldn’t get my buddy’s attention because it was about then that we encountered the highlight of the weekend. A weedy sea dragon, and then another and then a LEAFY seadragon. We spent another 30 mins with them. I saw two leafys and maybe half a dozen weedys and my buddy saw some more small leafys. What a thrill! The site was called Point Clune, but I renamed it Dragons Lair.
Beers and Scrabble and a delicious meal of perfectly cooked roast beef followed once we got back.

The following morning Luke dropped us in a deeper site hoping the vis would be better. It was the worst dive of my life. The vis was so bad I couldn’t see out my mask. I found the bottom when I hit it. As I descended it just grew darker and darker, but i don't think a torch would have helped even if I'd brought one. I had an 11 minute dive. There were members of our group who took 30mins and Isabelle even took a photo of rock cod! how the heck she found that is anyone's guess.
Last two dives were conducted at west patch where the mythical WA GNS are rumoured to hang out. On the first dive none were spotted and that was presumed to be because none of us actually found the cave. The second dive we saw none either, but the cave and swim throughs were cool and it is a lovely site.

The ocean turned oily for the trip home.

Thanks to Luke for putting on a good weekend, the scenic trip around the island, delicious meals (your truly rival Nigella in the domestic goddess stakes) and for that fabulous deck heater. I would also like to acknowledge Dave as he stepped in to assist Luke in organising live drops, anchoring etc.. after Amy had to be sent home with a sick note.

The weather forecast for this week looks great so I know those heading out next weekend will have a blast.

What will the mid August trip have in store?