Boarding the vessel at
For those that haven’t been on Big Cat Reality before she is a very comfortable boat to dive from and stay on. At 25m long and with a 10m wide beam she is big, and sleeps 24 guests in two large cabins below decks. Fully air-conditioned throughout, Big Cat has two lounge areas, a licensed bar, separate toilets and showers for the men and ladies and a huge sundeck/party deck up top. The dive deck is well laid-out and spacious, with room for 30 divers and little crowding.
After a calm night anchored at the top of
e
water, and the dive log must be signed before moving to the next dive site).The large rocky reef at Robert’s Shoal rises from the sand at 26m to 12m, while there was not much hard coral to be seen, the rocks are instead covered in beautiful black corals trees, gorgonians, soft corals, sea whips, tubastra corals and anemones. Exploring the reef in the 20m visibility and 21°C water we encountered a large black blotched stingray, ornate wobbegongs, blue gropers, mackerel, batfish and thick schools of bullseyes in the many caves.
After breakfast we headed down the eastern side of
Cherub’s Cave was as spectacular as always, even with no grey nurse sharks spotted. We still had a great time exploring the maze of caves and gutters that are coloured by some wonderful corals. We also saw numerous wobbegongs, lionfish, crayfish, nudibranchs and schools of surgeonfish, fusiliers and bullseyes.
With several divers onboard doing an advanced course, our next dive was a special treat, a rarely dived trawler wreck sitting on the sand at 31m. This vessel is around 15m long and sunk three years ago, and is now a haven for marine life. Though compact, and a little crowded with twenty divers on it, the trawler is home to yellowtail, cardinalfish, fusiliers, sweetlips, bannerfish, fortescues, lionfish, gropers and one large jewfish. The sand surrounding the wreck is a bit of a minefield – with half a dozen numbrays waiting to zap unsuspecting prey, and divers!
With a hot lunch in our bellies, and a few hours soaking up the warm sunshine, we next headed to China Wall, another grey nurse aggregation site. Aga
in
the sharks were absent, but we still had plenty of other things to see at this
unusual dive site, which is a rocky ridge covered in thick beds of kelp. We
investigated the gutters and caves at the site, finding lovely black coral trees
and gorgonians, plus mackerel, morwong, wobbies, angelfish, gropers, turtles and
a Spanish dancer. The whales on this dive were singing very loudly, almost
vibrating our bodies, and Nigel turned around at just the right time to see a
humpback whale zoom past in the 15m visibility. No one else in our group saw the
whale, even though it swam right beside them!Late in the afternoon we tied up at the mooring at Flinders Reef for an afternoon dive and night dive. But after four deep dives that day we had had enough and instead enjoyed a beer as the sunset over the
The next morning it was another early start, with the anchor dropped at
Our next dive was the wreck of the Cementco, a 67m long barge that was to be sunk as an artificial reef, but accidentally sunk in rough seas prematurely. The barge rests upside down in 25m and is always an interesting dive. The hopper doors have collapsed, allowing access to the ship, which is coloured by soft corals and black corals. The fish life is never great at Cementco, mainly small reef fish, but we did see the resident 2m long
Our last two dives of the weekend were spent at Flinders Reef,