18/11/2006 - My Favourite Dive Site ( everchanging Swansea Bridge )
Saturday morning 17th November 2006.
The high tide for today was 1.67 at 7ish.
Met my friends down at the R.S.L side of Swansea Bridge at 9am.
Before gearing up i walked along the edge and checked out the visibility... loooked pretty good. No wind, a very calm day. The current was still ripping through though, so there was a fair bit of time to wait.
Spoke to some other divers who were there, that i hadn't seen in such a long time. Its great to catch up with some true genuine friends.
Geared up with my buddy, and headed to the water.
Hopped in at 9:45am, current had stopped and it was still.
Cold at first, that initial flow of water into my suit definately gave me the chills. But after i was fine.
This was my first dive in swansea since they started there project of 'Protect Channel Bed'.
Protect Channel Bed - from August to November 2006 they are going to be placing rock ballast to protect the seabed against erosion of sand around the bridge piles. It will involve placing rock from a barge next to the bridge around the pylons at the bottom.
There has been alot of talk about this killing alot of fish species and their habitat.
But from what i saw on the dive today, there is a varst variety of fish down there and they don't look disturbed at all. All my favourite fish were still there in their hidie holes and more just doing what they do best.
I think this work will bring a lot more fish into the channel and the lake ' Lake Macquarie '. Yes it may of killed fish and their habitats, but in the long run i can see this being work being beneficial if not to the bridge to the plentiful fish it will bring.
There is already fish making homes out of the rocks, and they have place these crate basket looking things that are just covered in coral and fish life already. ( see my attempt at drawing the baskets below ).
And the Occy we were visited by.
Photo of Octopus taken by David Breneman.
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