The Pinnacle, Cape Hawke.
The day started with a fresh sou-westerly wind and clear skies. Six GLUG members boarded for the first dive of our new project Monitoring marine debris in the Great Lakes Area. We were heading to deep water site, the Pinnacle for some threatened species work, followed by a training dive at Latitude Reef. After a few delays in the harbour, Nick, skipper at Forster Dive Centre, chartered us out to the mooring at the Pinnacle. The water was a balmy 23deg on the surface, 19deg below, and visibility was good - 10-15m. We were there to document the local grey nurse shark and black cod populations, as well as check the area for marine debris. The site is deep >30m, so transect work was out of the question. Unfortunately, Heather had trouble with her weight belt and bcd, and had to abort the dive all together. The rest of us completed a roaming search for marine debris, and documented the fish life present. We checked the latest haunts for the cod family, spotting plenty of snapper, mulloway and kingies on the way, as well as the resident (massive) black ray. After a few 'hiccups' with insects in regulators & near choking events, we made our way back to the mooring line, where a lovely black cod was hanging in the dark crevices. Greg found an old rope and tangled monofilament bundle, which we removed from the site. No sharks were seen. Lesson of the day - always purge your regs before descending, you never know what you might find!
Dive Details: 33.8m, 29min, 19-23deg
Tangled mess of rope and monofilament found at 37m at the Pinnacle. Photo by Greg Toland
Young female grey nurse shark with fishing line trailing from her mouth at Latitude Reef. Photo by Greg Toland
Latitude Reef, Cape Hawke.
Jordan, Kaitlyn and I jumped in to 10m, the top of Latitude Reef, which runs due East-West, with a nice kelp bed on the top, and reef wall to the north that drops down to about 20m. I was showing Kaitlyn and Jordan the Marine Debris Method, so we stayed up on top, and ran two 25m tapes due east, checking for marine debris in a 5m band along each tape. Kaitlyn made the only find, a stainless swivel. We had to contend with a bit of swell, which always makes the method more of a challenge, but the trainees did a great job. To top it off, we had four grey nurses swim through the transect line right at the end, one of which was a lovely large female (2.5-3m). We then bumped into Greg and Colin and swam back along the wall to the cod hole, where at least 10 grey nurse sharks were cruising. Greg took around 80 shots of the sharks with the lasers (used to size each animal accurately) for the Spot a Shark team, and I tried to battle with the surge and get some shots for spot a shark. We spotted one small female with a long piece of line trailing from her mouth - a common sight in our local grey nurse shark population. Greg also spotted a green turtle, and Rob, the dive master, spotted a small hawksbill turtle. I found another debris item on our swim - a piece of metal bar, probably from an anchor. Heather had more trouble with her gear, and again had to abort the dive half way through the transect. 'I should not have got out of bed', she said back on board!
A great day for our first dive, and with the water looking better than it has in two years, we may be in for some busy weekends!
Dive Details: 16.4m, 36min, 19 deg.
I am out of action for a while after my choking incident - inhaled a full-grown cockroach at 33m, and now have pneumonia! Ah, the joys of diving :)
Some dives are just meant to be just wonderful. As we stood geared up ready to plunge into the cool 16 degrees water the GLUG group was treated to a huge humpback whale breaching at the stern of the boat. Feeling elated we made our way down to the barge. It is an old garbage barge lying in 28 metres of water a couple kilometres off the entrance to Wallis Lake. Even though the visibility was around 5m there was lots to see. A few huge old snapper were cruising a couple metres off the bottom while a school of small scale bulls-eyes hid under the bow of the wreck. I was fascinated by the enormous school of black and yellow striped balling catfish who were literally balling their way around the edge of the wreck. You could gently pass your hand into the mass and watch your hand being engulfed by the fish. In the rusty bowels of the wreck was a school of around 20 big mullaway, seemingly hanging in suspended animation. After our mandatory surface interval, where we compared notes on what each buddy pair saw on the dive we pulled anchor and moved to our second dive location, The Colours. The Colours is just that, a very colourful area of reef in about 10 metres of water off the north end of Mc Brides Beach. The area has lots of sand and kelp covered gutters and it isn’t hard to get lost in the maze of reef structures. Even though there was a lot of surge in the water and the group doing the reef life survey got themselves a bit tangled up there was a great range of fish species to be seen. These included the ever friendly blue groper, a number of colourful senator wrasse, schools of yellowtail scad and lots of rock cale. Anita Roche
The east coast population of Grey Nurse Sharks is listed as Critically Endangered. The Great Lakes Underwater Group (GLUG) are familiar with the “Spot a Shark” program, a non-profit dive community research project that uses photo-identification techniques to monitor grey nurse shark populations on the east coast of Australia. Club members often send down photos of grey nurse sharks for possible matches. One diver in particular has had a few of her shark photos from Seal Rocks identified as the same sharks sighted at Magic Point or Fish Rock.
Peter Simpson and Sean Barker from “Spot a Shark” were invited up to give a presentation of their work to the members of GLUG and the general public as part of the Great Lakes Marine Discovery Series. The following morning GLUG planned to take them out to Seal Rocks to continue the task and complete some field training for GLUG members. The presentation at Club Forster was well received and both guys were happy to answer any questions about their program. The project is based on non-invasive photographic identification system then identifies and tracks individual grey nurse sharks between key aggregation sites in NSW. Each shark has a series of pigmentation spots on either side of their body. These markings are unique to each shark. One device they use is two laser pointers attached to their cameras to ascertain the length of the shark. A left facing shark photograph is preferable as each side of a shark is different to the other side. It turns out Seal Rocks is an integral part of the shark migration being half way between Magic Point and Fish Rock.
Divers met at Forster marina early the next day to load up the boat then drove down to Seal Rocks for a short snorkel out to the boat to drop anchor off nearby Big Seal Rock. The water had good visibility and still reasonably comfortable at 19 degrees. Approximately thirty grey nurse sharks were sighted; unfortunately at least three animals had hooks in their mouths or gills. The songs of the whale could be heard throughout the entire dive.
Aside from the sharks also sighted was a large loggerhead turtle, girdled parmas, mado, maori wrasse, comb wrasse, one spot pullers, bulleyes, red morwong, blue and brown grouper, red rock cod, goatfish and a large wobbegong, all duly recorded on slates and photographed for our identification and research work. Total dive time was 40 minutes with a maximum depth of 24.8 metres.
A second dive was done at the same site, as Peter and Sean were more than happy with both the conditions and number of grey nurses. Total dive time was 41 minutes with a maximum depth of 23.3 metres.
Finally the swells subsided enough to allow us to get back in the water. With the last two dives canned because of unfavourable conditions, we were keen to get wet again. Numbers were too low to justify a boat trip to Seals, so April and I trekked over the hill and went for a lovely swim at Shelly Beach. The fish diversity was fantastic, with over 50 species observed in nice clear water. We swam around the point, checking the caves and crevices around the small island rock off the point. In one gutter, there were Ornate and Spotted Wobbegongs, Port Jackson Sharks and stacks of bulls-eyes, along with the beautiful Southern Fusiliers. On our way back, we spotted a couple of Grey Nurse Sharks cruising through the outer gutter. So we nestled ourselves amongst the kelp and tried to get some good photos of them. Meanwhile, April spies a couple of Whitelegg's Weedfish, Heteroclinus whiteleggi. Very cute. Nearing the shore, a small green turtle dart out from the rocks and flies past us at amazing speed. What a great way to end a very pleasant dive.
This year GLUG hosted a film night at Club Forster, featuring GLUG footage of the local area and the documentary "Byron Underwater". The evening was well attended and enjoyed by all. "Oceans of Life: choose your favourite; protect your favourite" was the theme for WOD 2010. In keeping with the theme, GLUG also ran a small competition at Forster Library, for local people to choose their favorite local marine animal, as photographed by GLUG members. Voters were asked to select from the following animals: neon damsel, strawberry cod, blue groper, grey nurse shark, ornate wobbegong, loggerhead turtle, green turtle, giant cuttlefish, red rock cod, common stingaree, pineapple fish. The competition was very close, with the green turtle just pipping the others at the post. Equal second was awarded to the grey nurse shark, loggerhead turtle and ornate wobbegong. A snorkel and mask set, courtesy of Action Divers, was won by Forster resident, Paul Parton. The green turtle will now be developed into our mascot.
It was the Anzac Day public holiday and nine members of The Great Lakes Underwater Group met up at the Forster marina to load up the boat from Action Divers. Typical of long weekends, the weather was inclement with brisk southerly winds whipping up the seas. The original plan to dive Seal Rocks was revised and we opted for local dives close to the shore.
Isabelle and Peter undertook Reef Life Surveys whilst the other members recorded fish life on slates and digital cameras. The water temperature was still pleasantly warm and due to the southerly the visibility was good. As soon as the divers hit the water at One Mile Gutters they were surrounded by an enormous school of yellow tail scad. Thousands of fish moved as one, circling the divers and often blocking their line of sight. The depth was only 12 metres enabling rays of sunlight to pierce the water and shine on the fish and create brilliant flashes of silver as they darted in the shallow water.
Also recorded were herring cale, bronze-coloured old wives, Moorish idols, turtles, one-spot pullers, girdled parmas, crimson banded wrasse, Maori wrasse, boxfish, moray eels, nudibranches, wobbegongs, luderick, mado, toadfish, pipefish, goatfish, stripeys, flounder, red morwong, neon damsel, pineapple fish and Guenther's butterfly fish. At the entrance to the cave at Bennett’s Head bombie was a large blue grouper waiting for a handout of urchins. Only one item of debris, an electrical insulator, was found. A pod of dolphins followed the boat through the bar.
Two weeks of southerly winds and swell finally delivered clear waters for GLUG, and Saturday 27th February, six members headed out to Big Seal Rock, now classified as Sanctuary Zone in the Port Stephens - Great Lakes Marine Park. The site is also well known for it's Grey Nurse Sharks, and listed as a Critical Habitat Site for these endangered animals. GLUG dived here 12 months ago with great conditions, and saw about 70 sharks in the Eastern Gutter on that occasion, but that was nothing compared to the treat in store for them today. Visibility was good, about 20m, and the water was a balmy 23 degrees. Six divers headed down the line and were greeted by a pair of Lord Howe Butterfly fish at the bottom, along with the usual suspects, Mado, Sweep, Crimson-banded wrasse and One-spot pullers. We took a wide berth around the rock, where Beardies, Cardinalfish and Eastern Wirrah darted in and out of crevices. As we rounded the rock into the main gutter, we were literally gob-smacked by the sheer numbers of sharks parading up and down the gutter. I counted over 120 sharks over the course of the dive, and we didn't cover the entire length of the gutter. Sharks ranged from just over 1m in size (juveniles) to solid 3m seniors. There were a lot of fat females, many with scratch marks around their faces, one with a large chunk out of her head. There were also a lot of discarded teeth on the sea floor. Sharks were mostly just swimming up and down the gutter, but a couple were observed rolling around in the gravel, one was seen eating a fish, and a couple were very inquisitive about what we were doing in their gutter, swimming close enough for divers to touch them as they swam passively past. At one point, I had sharks all around me, above, below and on either side of me. Divers with cameras took as many photos as possible, trying to get clear shots of the sharks flanks for the "Spot a Shark" program, and those with slates documented the other (abundant) fish life present. Yellow-tailed Kingfish swam along with the sharks, while Comb Wrasse cheekily harassed divers as they watched the parade with fascination. There were also many wobbegongs present, both spotted and ornate; Snapper, Bream, masses of Bullseyes, at least four Numbrays, Neon and Immaculate Damsels, Girdled Parmas, Red and Blue Morwongs, Moorish Idols, and six-spine Leatherjackets. Divers noted two sharks with hooks, one in its gills, the other in it's mouth. They also collect one 6oz sinker and one plastic lure, both of which did not appear to be fresh debris. DIve time was 35minutes at 25m, and all divers were buzzing when they surfaced for a break and a cuppa before re-entering on the western side of the island for dive two. There is one small grotto on the western side of the island where sharks hang in smaller numbers. Being shallower, GLUG completed their Marine Debris Survey and I ran a 50m Reef Life Survey. THere were so many fish present, I had trouble counting them, particularly the One-spot pullers. I saw a stack of Yellow-tailed Kingfish, including one very fat 75cm individual. Three sharks swam across my transect, I had a stack of bream, goatfish, wrasse, and red morwongs. The substratum was a boulder field, thick with Black Urchins that kept me very busy counting. The Debris Survey turned up 3 old 6oz sinkers, and some debris in the grotto (fishing line) that was left so as not to disturb the sharks. An old listening station tyre was also observed.
Great Lakes Underwater Group is a volunteer underwater research group comprised of SCUBA divers from the Great Lakes Area on the mid-north coast of New South Wales, Australia. Our projects to date have included the development of a local fish inventory; documenting local endangered fish, such as the grey nurse shark, black cod and turtles, working with other research organisations, such as Spot a Shark and Reef Life Survey.
Our current project is focused on monitoring and removing marine debris from local reef systems in the Great Lakes Area.
Weekly dives, where possible (weather permitting). GLUG MEETING: 16th April, 5pm, Great Lakes Council, Large Committee Room Upcoming sites: All Seal Rocks sites; Blackhead and shallower town areas. Community Education Events 8th-12th April - beach waste art workshops. Stockland Shopping Centre. 9th April - Marine Discovery Series, Matt Broadhurss (DPI) - By-catch Reduction. Cape Hawke SLSC, Forster, 6pm April 7th-28th, Project Aware on the Coast. A four week long community education course, focusing on current marine environmental issues. 23rd May - Bag IT movie screening, hosted by special guest, Tim Silverwood (Take 3), Tea Gardens Baptist Church. 6:00-8:30.
