Dive Number: 28 10/04/2010 15.49 St Leonards Pier
Wind: 15 knot westerlies
Tide: 1 hour before 0.36 low tide at Geelong
Conditions: Water was reasonably clean but vis wasn’t specatular. Surface water was nice and still and a setting sun provided amble light beams throug the water.
Bottom Type: Sandy bottom with peir pylons
Visibilty: 5-6m
Water Temp: 19c
Bottom Time: 85 minutes
Max Depth: 3.8m
Air usage: 105bar/1500psi
SAC: 11.1 litres/min
Details: Thought I’d continue on with the wide-angle fisheye and take some scapes at St Leonards. The Vis wasn’t the best, but I was surprised how little backscatter you could eliminate with a well positioned dual strobe setup.
Camera Details: Tokina 10-17mm fisheye, dual SS200 strobe.
Dive Report: First up i found a Ceratasome Brevicardum, so i though i’d try some close focus wide angle. I couldn’t get a good composition but this shot brought out the colours nicely.
I’d never noticed this old wheel before:
Globefish hide under the ecklonia kelp hanging off the pylons, but they can still be seen from side on!
Of course, once they know they’re spotted, they head for another pylon.
A school of hulafish always hangs out in the same place near the weed covered breakwater.
Masses of baitfish lit up spectacularly in the sunlight penetrating the water
No kids around today, but this is a high danger area of being landed on when they bomb in the water. They exit from this ladder… i’ll have to try to capture the expressions of coldness on their faces in the next few months as the water temperature drops.
A small smooth ray lay in the shallows as i exited.
Here’s a bit of an impressionistic photoshop manipulation of the interplay of light and fish that was going on during this dive:
