Middle Ground 03-03-07

March 3, 2007 - a fine day and low, long rolling swell. We hadn't dived Middle Ground before so decided to give it a go. Sitting pretty much in the middle of a line between the 2 heads of Bate Bay (Port Hacking) this site is deeper than we expected. We were diving on 36% Nitrox, expecting 26-27m but found it to be 33m on the sand. This left us with a PO2 of 1.5, still OK but we don't like to exceed 1.4.

But having got down there and with great viz we explored the East side of the reef, heading south from our anchor point. This reef has deep gulleys aplenty but not wide enough to swim through. There was heaps of fish including cuttles, a weedie sea dragon at 33m, schools of yellowtail, gropers and heaps more. Beautiful soft corals and sea tulips, just a great site. We didn't get right around the reef so that will have to wait till next time.

Even on 36% Nitrox, 29 mins into the dive I has 2 mins no deco time left, enough to do slow, safe ascent and not go into deco.