Bare Isl East 4-2-06

Plan A on February 2 2006 was 3 short dives. Wedding Cake Island, Magic Point and Point Tupei. We met at South Maroubra and a quick look at the seas told us that Plan A was a no go. Plan B was Botany Bay. We put the boat in at the container wharf ramp. The seas in the bay were very choppy with strong winds. Henry head was no good so we elected to anchor the boat at Bare Island close to the entry ramp. We dived under the bridge and along the island. Our intention was to put the dive flag on the anchor and the get a GPS reading for it. On the way we saw the outboard motor. We came across an octopus that had hold of a dead catfish. It was valiantly trying to keep hold of it against the surge and we assume trying to eat it. We also found a 9lb weight. Wayne found that carrying an extra 9lb required a huge amount of inflation of his BCD. The viz was OK but the surge was lifting a lot of sand. After the dive we met Erin and 3 other hardy souls from Deep 6. My 198th dive at a max depth of 11.9m and for 71 mins. Given the conditions we decided to call it quits at one dive for the day.