The Arch and The Cave can be done as either 2 separate dives or one single dive. As this was our first time here we wanted to explore as much as we could. The mooring is great, about 60m from shore on the S side of the Arch. Straight down to the bottom and you are right in front of the Arch itself. The water temp was 15oC, somewhat cooler than Sydney, The Arch is big, and quite long. It is around 22m on the sand and about 16m at the top. It goes for quite a length, running roughly north-south, 15-20m in all. There are great sponge gardens nearby and schooling fish all around and through the Arch. We swam through and the back and followed the rocks around to the Cave. Here we found 16 PJs, mostly very pregnant females. While photographing them we saw coming up from the South a moderate size black ray being chased by a very large bullray. Wayne said he saw a fish in the smaller one's mouth. They maneuvered very swiftly up and down around the rocks. Eventually the smaller one came to rest on the top of the shelf. The large bull continued to circle, at one stage coming straight at me. I had moved closer to a large rock so I could get out of their way. However, the large bull ray came straight at me. I must admit to a moment of slight panic and turned onto my back so that my fins were facing the ray. It saw me at the last minute and veered away. It must have missed my fins by centimetres. After that encounter we headed back towards the arch, finding a red Indian fish and a very pregnant PJ. Sadly, there were no GNS is site. The cave here is visited by GNS but it appears, unlike Magic Point, the don't stay here all the time These 2 features are really wonderful dive sites and we will visit them often. Unfortunately my strobe batteries failed so pics are lacking colour and sharpness. |
|
This site was last updated 28/10/11 |