In January 2010 Mick Todd and I drove from Sydney to Port Lincoln on a mission to see Great White Sharks at the Neptune Islands. Mick is bizarrely afflicted by loyalty to a satanic football club from Old Trafford, Manchester UK but otherwise is quite normal. or so he says. We shared the driving. I drove the first ten kilometres then let Mick have his turn at the wheel for the rest of the journey. There and back. En route we detoured to the tiny community of Rapid Bay, south of Adelaide. Described as one of the best jetty dives in Australia, the new Rapid Bay Jetty is 470 metres long with a 200 metre T-section at the end and is well known for its resident Leafy Sea Dragons. The original Rapid Bay Jetty was used to load ballast from a quarry onto large ships but had fallen into disrepair.
The sound of The Stripper on Mick’s iPhone woke us at 6.30 a.m. and after a hot pie for breakfast (I think Mick’s favourite breakfast) Mick and I kitted up, walked along the new jetty and then finned on the surface of the sea from the new jetty to halfway along the old jetty. As we did so, Mick spotted a large Cownose Ray – a good start. We dropped down from the surface and within just a few moments Mick found the first of several Leafy Sea Dragons. If it had been left to me I suspected we would have run out of air long before I found one.
Mick and I enjoyed four dives under the old jetty. All were long, the shortest being 104 minutes and we finished each dive with very little air left in our tanks. Of course the Leafy Sea Dragons were the star of the show but vast numbers of Old Wives concentrated around one of the jetty pillars, were also highly photogenic. And they enabled Mick to crack a joke about feeling he was at a Rod Stewart concert. Mick has other jokes like that.
Afterwards continuing our journey to Port Lincoln, we became engrossed by the live Test Match radio coverage of a highly unlikely Australian fight back against the Pakistani cricket team. Our Great White Shark mission was temporarily abandoned as Mick and I diverted to a pub to watch the game on television.
Then it was back on the road to Port Lincoln for our date with the Great Whites in the Neptune Islands.