Fairy Bower again

• water temp about 23
• Vis as much as 20m
• 78 minute dive
• Buddied with JCJ
• In at 08:30, an hour after high tide
• Mainly clear, pretty flat with wind from the SW

After the shark spotting success of last week I had high hopes for today. Skies were fairly clear so there should be plenty of light and the water looked very clear from the shore. Very, very clear. There were a few bouys in the nea rdistance that seemed to be part of a swim of paddle or some other competition. I hoped we'd not have too much company in the water that might scare the fish away, though I am not sure how scared fish are of a lot of splashing on the surface. Not at all, I suspect.

Geared up and in the water, a quick look down seemed to confirm that the water was indeed clear and we had up to 20m vis and the temp reading on my guage did not drop below 24. Tropical! The dive started well, got better and finished fantastically. The start...a squadron of squid hanging in midwater just ahead of us, big eyes presumably checking us out. Then a large Blue Grouper came over to check us out, tooka shine to me and I spent a little while tickling him under the chin. As I swam further out he followed behind, walking to heal far better than Rumpole does. As we headed out to the sand we passed a returning solo diver who gave the shark sign (hand making a fin atop the head) and pointed vaguely out to where he was returning from. Cool.

We passed schools of mullet, bream and yellowtail as we headed out onto the sand and before long we saw our firts dusky whaler. This week JCJ spotted it too. We spent most of the first 30mins of the dive out on the sand, heading slowly north and I counted 12 sharks; at one time I saw three together, so there were between three and 12 with us, all around the 1-1.5 mark. By the time we finished the dive I'd seen 18 or 19, with 4 at once. JCJ saw 5 at once, so there are at least 5. As we packed the car after the dive a guy told us he'd seen 10 from the surface yesterday. The size of the these fish means they are clearly not the same ones we swam with 4 years earlier. Mum comes back.

The sharks typically stay near the limit of our vision but a couple did come in closer and we got a good look at them. We got closer still to the wobbegong that JCJ found in a gap between Aztec City's rocks. We turned the dive and returned next to and over the rocks, still surrounded by loads of fish. Goatfish, blackfish, mado, old wives, a decent sized flathead, bullseye, more grouper and other wrasse, a small group of butterflyfish (here for the summer) and plenty of other stuff. The JCJ motioned ahead and swam off after something. I headed after him.

To begin with I thought he had found a sunfish as he hovered by a large, flat, dark shape. It turned out to be a shoal of striped catfish, in midwater. The shoal morphed from a ball, to a line to a disk and back to a ball, the aquatic version of a flock of starlings at dawn or dusk. Very cool. We headed on, past more sharks and slowly made our way shorewards.

The dive finished on yet another high as in no more than 2.5m of water we found a giant cuttlefish who came and checked us out, causing us both to hit reverse gear before he got to close, all arms and attitude.

Definitely the best dive I have done at the Bower.