Bushrangers Bay 03-07-11

Bushrangers Bay is always a nice place to dive. The walk down (and then back up again) is a bit tough but the diving is very safe and there is a wide range of life around. On this day the weather was fine and sunny and the water was crystal clear - it would be too much to say it had that tropical water sparkle. We slowly headed out going over to the south side of the bay. There was a myriad of fish life here including bullseye a small stingaree, one spot pullers, rock cod, a shy moray, mado, crimson wrasse and sea carp to name a few. We headed out to the 15m mark, I was hoping to find some PJs. It was a bit boring at the deeper end so we headed back, working our way up towards the north wall. It was here at about 6m that we first saw the giant cuttle.

He was swimming in and out of gaps in the rocks on the wall, totally oblivious of our presence. We watched him do this 3 times then he turned and headed towards deeper water. He turned enough to finally see us. He took a good look at us and dismissed us as of no interest to him. He turned and headed away with not so much as another look in our direction. He was, without doubt, the biggest cuttle that I have ever seen. He would have been a good 800mm in the body, very solid across the body and really long arms. Check out the vide below.

The water was so clear in the shallows we spent a lot of our time there and most of these pics were taken with natural light.