The Sisters Dive, Tasmania, Australia

[Pink Panther]

The Sisters, Tasman Peninsula, Tasmania 26-8-07

Bruno & I met Kerry, John & Iain at the Boomer Bay boat ramp. There was a very slight NW breeze with Boomer bay looking absolutely beautiful & calm.

We headed out of the Narrows to find Marion Bay with no swell whatsoever; this was to be my first trip to the Sisters Rocks; as we went past Lagoon Bay there was still no swell to speak of.

Upon arriving at the Sisters I couldn’t help notice the rugged coastline and the beautiful scenery. The outer Sister was the agreed dive site and John & Bruno jumped in first. After 30 minutes or so John & Bruno surfaced and then Kerry, Iain & I jumped in. We dropped down between the outer Sister and the small rock just to the North. At about 30 meters I looked up and could see the boats on the surface, there were Sea Whips everywhere and of course Butterfly Perch lots of Butterfly Perch. Before I jumped in I told Iain that my “ Knowledge of fish names “ wasn’t very good, his advice to me was to put fish into two categories “ edible fish “ & “ non edible “ so on Iain’s advice we saw some “ edible fish “ & some “ non edible fish ” I think the Edible fish we saw were a type of Trumpeter ?

After following the rock face down to 30 meters the bottom leveled off for about 10 meters before we went over a sheer drop off that took us down to a sandy patch in about 43 meters. The sandy patch was about 5 meters wide and was surrounded by a very small reef which we followed around. By the time we had swum around this small reef our bottom time was up and we started to head back up the wall of the outer Sister which was smothered in yellow Zoanthids.

On the way up the wall we poked around the nooks and crannies, it was here that I grabbed a few Abalone, after Iain & myself deployed our DSMBs we went to 5 meters and did our safety stop. By the time we surfaced we had drifted about 100 meters east of the outer Sister.

We then headed in to a little quiet corner behind Cape Surville for lunch to listen to a certain diver who thought he was Guy Smiley from the Sesame Street News. He was intent on interviewing all us divers on what we thought of the dive we had just done. “I think he was still narked from the deep dive “. Anyway it was decided that we would jump in right where we were for the second dive, & what a nice relaxing dive it was. The deepest I got to was 16 meters, the Visibility was 15 meters, saw heaps of Crayfish all were Females and saw lots of edible fish & non edible fish oh and the longest Draught Board Shark I have ever seen, it would have being 3 foot long . After 45 minutes we all jumped back in our boats and headed for Boomer Bay. Once the boats were on the trailers we went to the Dunalley Bakery.

A great day was had by all, the fact that there was no swell made the boat trip out and backs an absolute pleasure. I must thank Bruno, Iain & Kerry for a fantastic day with special thanks to John “ alias” ( Guy Smiley ) from the TSDC News for bringing his boat, this was my first dive at the Sisters and it was more memorable thanks to those who I dived with, Thanks again.

To put it into context for the non-Taswegians:






Peter Sellers

[Richard Mason]

To put the glorious weather and perfect diving conditions into context, this was the scene only 95kms/60 miles to the North (at Freycinet Peninsula) that afternoon.

[Ding Dang Doo]

Sigh,

looks superb! Nice little write up too, thanks Peter!

Edible and non edible... my sort of fish guide!!!

Pete