Over the past 20 years, my friends and I have spent a considerable amount of time exploring the coastline of southern Sydney, looking for new dive sites. Off Royal National Park especially we have discovered dozens of new sites. Most have been very good, ones we have visited time and time again.
Just out from the entrance of Port Hacking is Jibbon Bombora. This dominates the southern approach to the entrance. From the northern side of the bommie, the reef runs east out about a kilometre and then heads south. On the section that heads south, we have dived many sites. However, until late 2008 we had not done too many dives on the section that runs back towards Port Hacking.
On a dive in mid-December 2008 I did a drift dive from Red Rooster Reef to the north and then the west. Along the way, we had some excellent sections, one of which I named Oporto Reef. In mid-February 2009 I attempted to refind this site but instead, found a new reef which I named Blue Devil Reef (for reasons you will see).
From Port Hacking, head just south of east for about a kilometre to GPS Reading S34° 04' 29.9" E151° 10' 40.9" (using WGS84 as the datum). Run in over the reef from the north and you will see that the reef comes up from a sandy bottom of about 25 metres to 20 and then 17 metres. Anchor in about 20 metres.
The reef here runs east-west with a small section that goes to the south. This bit runs up into the reef and leads to a small wall that curves around to the east. This sort of leads back to a higher section of reef that is also interesting.
From the anchor, once you reach the wall, head to the north and follow the wall. There are some small overhangs, some of which house blue devilfish. Hence the name we gave to this dive site. After about 50 metres the wall peters out and the reef heads to the west. It is less interesting here, so head back to the south.
Back near the anchor you will see that the sand edge heads east. This only has a low, kelp covered reef as the edge. If you follow this, after about 30 or 40 metres you come across a section of higher wall. This has a lot of sponges and sea squirts, and many fish live in the small overhangs and gaps between the small rocks off the wall. The wall here turns to the north. I have not gone past here but I think that it only goes a very short distance before it loops back in a U to the east and then south (this is from running over the reef in the boat with the depth sounder running). I will explore this a bit more later.
As mentioned the depth is about 25 metres or so on the sand, so you get about 25 to 30 minutes bottom time, depending on how long you spend deeper.
A very nice dive site.
|