And now i need to wash my wetsuit!

[Keith Whittaker]

Thursday night, and with the wind blowing from the south, my buddy and I decide that our usual night dive in the Swan River should be replaced with something different.
Woodman Point Jetty stands about 5km south of Fremantle. Known far and wide as the "Ammo Jetty" due to its former employment it is a concrete construction that juts out about 100m or so into Cockburn sound and is very popular with the local angling fraternity.
I've dived this site several times during the day and it is a nice easy jetty dive, covered in life, often with large schools of fish, max depth is probably only 10m but a happy couple of hours can be spent amongst the pylons and assorted detritus that the topsiders have lost overboard.
So in we go, and a very interesting time is being had, the soft corals are out feeding, the bottom is covered in assorted crabs, even a couple of prawns are poking around in the silt. We see baby Port Jackson sharks cruising around, squid which turn blood red in the beam of our torches, several occies out of their holes exploring. I even find a tiny little blue ring octopus searching the nooks and crannies of a collapsed beam.
Eventually, after about an hour or so of happy fish hugging, we find ourselves approximately under the far end of the jetty. My buddy is contemplating a birds nest of tangled fishing line and assorted lures near the base of a piling, ( doesn't monofil show up much better in torchlight ?), and i am wondering if i can manage to sit in an abandoned camping chair which sits upright in the silt, when, at the very limit of my torch beam, something very big and grey, briefly glides past! At first I am unsure if I have actually seen anything at all but my heartrate has just jumped and I turn to my buddy Chris to signal for him to look up and out when he lets out a perfectly audible scream. Looking up to check on me, out of the very corner of his eye, something very big and grey has just glided past him at arms length. Neither of us wants to admit it but we are both quietly cacking ourselves at this moment. GWS, although incredibly rare, are not unknown in the shallows around Perth and the darkness which surrounds us, previously filled with new and exciting finds that we were anxious to explore, now seems even darker and is filled with monsters!
With unspoken agreement, we move slowly towards the nearest piling as I rack my brain trying to remember if there are any ladders at this end of the jetty.
There it is again, too far away to distinguish but definitely there, definitely moving and definitly bigger than us. Our torch beams sweep the surrounding water, our hearts are now beating like jackhammers, even that bloody music has started in my head, Daahhdum.... Daahhdum....dahdum.dahdum.dahdum..
Suddenly! from the depths of the dark, heading straight for us comes a .................................................. .................................................. .........
Bloody Seal!!!!!!!!!!
A big adult male, he circles around us, eying us curiously, although probably blinded by our lights, and then just as swiftly he performs a quick backflip and is gone!
Breathing huge sighs of relief, we check our air, gain control of our breathing, look sheepishly at one another and agree that it is beer o'clock.
Straight back to the entry, out of the water, silently walk back to the cars, Dekit, open a stubby, look at each other and simultaneously exclaim.
" Geezus Mate! I was absolutely sh!tting myself then!"
Then agree that it was a fantastic dive, arrange to do it again next week. say our goodbyes and off home to deal with our wetsuits which ,despite rinsing, still retain a slight, faintly familiar odour.

[yazzyfooty]

Oh wow that sounds so exciting!! I would have shit it just seeing a Blue Ringed Octopus especially after watching a documentary on them the other day. Beautiful but nasty little buggers.
The funniest bit of your post was the jaws tune .

[sexydivebuddy]

[scuboo]

Classic! Thanks for sharing!

I'm pretty sure that the jaws theme tune would come to me in the same situation now!!

[Aquatic Mammal]

The little 8u99er$ can take you by surprise, I had a similar shock encounter with a seal in Greece.

I have found a suitable product for removing the fragrance from your suit, it's called Mingaway!


mingaway...wetsuit rescue