15/5/2006 - Pt Stanvac double

Spent yesterday on & under the water, which was good, weather was overcast but it didn't rain and it was nice and flat.  Did a double dive in the Pt Stanvac area, which we haven't frequented in a while (not counting shore dives from Pt Noarlunga!).  First dive was to 27m on the Pt Stanvac barges.  From the surface the vis didn't look too bad, but further down it looked like there a whole lot of snot in the water.  This was my first time on this site.  Apparently there are 3 barges, but we only manged to see one (I think - it was hard to get perspective with the low vis) without going into deco.  Didn't see any nudi's but there was an excellent specimen of a boarfish, who clearly wasn't fazed by us divers.  Second dive was an inshore site called the Stanvac dump.  Basically, this spot is north of the Pt Stanvac refinery jetty where they used to dump just about anything.  Lots of cables, pipes and even a car, all at about 10-12m depth.  Good place for collecting lost anchors too!  I've done it once before, but it's spread over a large area so there's plenty to see.  The area we covered on this dive had plenty of natural as well as artificial reef.  I found a very cool starfish - it was purple!  My buddies also saw a blue devil but I missed it .  Oh well.  Vis was much better here.  Unfortunately we were pretty cold by this stage, so although we had plenty of time & air left, we decided to head back to the boat after 30-odd minutes. 

It was good to get in the ocean and see if I've improved with buoyancy etc. since doing the cav/sink course.  Unfortunately with the current running it was virtually impossible to do a safety stop without hanging on to the anchor line.  Only 1 dive off my 50th now - another milestone for me!! To think this time last year, I had only done about dozen.