There’s a multitude of diving treats around Port Phillip Bay. You can venture to Portsea, the Mornington Peninsula and Queenscliff to experience unforgettable sights such as seals feeding, dolphins swimming overhead and crayfish foraging for food on the ocean floor. You can also investigate a vast number of shipwrecks. Once travelling from the other side of the globe, they met their gurgling end, unfortunately, just outside of Port Melbourne. Some diving excursions will take you to see ghostly old submarines that have perched themselves at the bottom of the sea. Plenty of marine life can also be found at these sites. Off Mornington, soft corals and sponge gardens can be viewed from places such as Rye Pier, where seahorses bob in the water and the occasional Moreton Bay bug pays a visit. Dive here at night for an even more spectacular underwater odyssey. Flinders Pier is home to a fascinating weedy seadragon population, and Portsea Hole allows you to plunge 34 metres to see overhangs, luminous blue devil fish and schools of whiting For those wanting a brush-with-death experience,divingheadquarters.com.au offers the only dive-with-sharks course in Victoria at the Melbourne Aquarium – you don’t even have to be a certified diver.
February 10th, 2012