You'll love it! Keep it slow, and look out for seahorses (you can often find them hidden, infact there was one I only saw in the video while making it :-D ) There are a whole bunch of interesting stuff on the poles if you stop to look as well, I love finding the Red Rock Crabs there, that east/west section of pier often has quite a lot of critters, and it quite short!

For cameras, I carry 2 GoPros (one with a wide angle lens, and one with a more macro lens) and an insta 360 in a dive case. Anywhere it is very wide, or includes me it will be the Insta. It is pretty good quality, but can take shots that I can't easily get any other way... Anything that is a stingray has a barb I believe The smooth rays definitely have a barb. In general stingrays are very chilled, and are just interested in divers. You wouldn't want to be above them and scare them, but dispite them being really big (usually 1.5m to 2m diameter) they are very friendly. The fiddler rays, I believe are a type of shark and have no barb.

Oh, actually, those (there were 2) big smoothrays were missing their tails for some reason. Not sure why. but normally they would have a tail.

Glad you found out some new stuff! Yeah, there are a surprising amount of different critters you can find down there, Almost every dive I spot something new, just need to look hard enough! Have you done diving?

Thanks! I hadn't heard of a diveyak, interesting idea. I have been thinking about getting a DPV for doing some not quite shore dives. Do you have any experience with a diveyak?

Thanks! It feels like they are getting better. I think the next one from this video is the Mornington one (kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y6bcqnSDZ9d6Zqc). I hope to get to a few of the less travelled to spots over the summer.

It's easy to feel a bit more worried about a night dive, but it is like a totally different place! Octopus and squid are a lot more common, and you often see different fish and often bigger fish. It also is amazing for macro photography if you are into that, as you don't get the colours from elsewhere to deal with. Hope you can get out and try it one day, it's worth it! If you do advanced scuba it is usually sone as part of that. Or you can do the night course, this is 3 dives i think. Thanks for watching!

Glad you enjoyed it! Well worth doing snorkelling there too! Hopefully next time the diving will be on again!

Haha yes, it is much better to be in the fish bowl than one at home 😆 yeah, sting rays are actually very peaceful, and will pretty much just watch you swim around them, super chilled out. Will havr to capture the smooth rays at Flinders, they are massive, and come and check you out... quite unnerving the first time you see them. Drysuits are essentially a waterproof bag, you have your warm layers on underneath them, will have to show that next time, but yes, you have a inflator that connects from your air to your suit, and you can add air or let it out from a valve. Quite a bit different from a wetsuit...

Thanks Jak, yeah, it feels like we are starting to get the hang of it, still plenty to work on... gotta figure out how to shut up the seagulls 😆 it was fantastic on those... yeah, hoping the maps help what to see and expect there.. would like to get some under pier footage too...

Thanks @DirtbikesandDiving glad you enjoyed it, and hope you get out there and maybe find some new places to explore!

Have managed to get the Mornington dive done, just preparing now! Although new gear has meant i have less to work with 😆

Yeah, it is amazing what is down there where you would just walk past! The spots are in the water and probably a mix of particulate from the sand and sea life. We tend to get a bit of that, especially through the heads. I think you need either very calm waters or deep water ( like in Aitutaki) to not get much. It is especially brought out when you have lights... i try to minimise it, but it is hard to completely get rid of.

Yeah! I really love all the textures of the seaweeds, all so different and tactile... I really miss them in sites with not many. Tasmania supposedly has massive kelp forests that would be awesome to check out, I think there are also supposed to be some out near Wilson's prom too...

Yeah, it is a big difference with clear water. More light means a lower ISO on the camera, giving better quality. Also often KZbin will use Auto quality settings, make sure you select 1080p. 👍🏼 Yeah they have tiny transparent fins, and don't have a lot of speed .. mostly they just go in and out of the weeds..they don't do much in the way of racing 😆

That would be interesting, Although I think it would be a challenge to get into the water there, I'm sure the regulations would be a challenge, and honestly I'm not desperate to become fish food if they decide to do an engine check... My guess is it would be pretty similar to Princes Pier... but with less life... The sunlight at Princes Pier seems to have made a big difference to the amount of critters and plants there... I would like to do a few more on some of the other more varied sites around the bay... maybe it is something we can get back to...

Yeah, They aren't keen to be near people... These are Stingarees - this is a subclassification of stingrays... From looking up online this seems to be because they have a rear fin...

@@SeaSpiritAu That's interesting, but if they still have a barb, you should be careful near them.

Spot on! Winter is the time to dive (for visibility anyway) Will have to try a few more locations as winter closes in and see what we get... We are just in the process of getting some drysuits, which will make it less challenging in the cold

That would be fantastic. Probably no need to petition council however. Ocean divers regularly does cleanup dives, and i have spoken about it, and they are keen to get some advanced divers to head out here and do a cleanup... might also talk to Altona and see if they want to help out too. The problem is there are so many sea stars. Would need some reasonable gear to get that many out... would probably need lift bags, and due to the silting it will probably be a big challenge...

@@SeaSpiritAu we have all the gear as we’ve been running invasive species dives for a long time now (i wrote the course on it). All our divers are trained and used to working in silt conditions, the issue has always been how we dispose of everything after we’ve removed it.

@@olliepaynediving404 That's awesome! Thanks for getting back to me! Tell me what do you remove? Just the undaria and starfish? or the fanworms as well? I was talking to someone on the a fb group about them, and looks like these all seem to be the european/Mediterranean fanworms that are invasive, is that right?

Hard to tell... the first one looks like a while, what do you think? The second two not very long i wouldn't think... around a year... the sea hasn't taken them back yet 😆

Yeah, you will be very surprised what it looks like in clearer conditions, although this night was pretty good, last Thursday was unbelievable!

Thanks! It was a bit on the creepy side as it got dark, and really the visibility was very low... We went back this week and the visibility was a lot better... Looking forward to putting that video together!

Thanks Nick, Next year I'll try and get something more this year ;-)

Thanks!