After the March 2021 freshwater floods, local divers were still in shock at the impact it had had on the Nelson Bay dive sites. Fly Point was showing some signs of recovery but the shallow underwater topography was still mainly bare rock and strands of kelp and The Pipeline seemed to be becoming progressively worse. My theory on that was that as The Pipeline is further from The Heads than Fly Point, it had been hit by a higher concentration of flood water herbicides and pesticides while having less salinity. I suspected that what we were seeing was fatally weakened plants failing to recover and eventually dying. There was still little sign of smaller marine life in the shallows.

But below seven to eight metres was a different story. Ashley Smith kindly pointed out to me a Yellow Crested Weedfish at Fly Point, the first I had seen since the freshwater floods and deeper the juvenile Crested Horn sharks were a joy to photograph and the Blind sharks were getting frisky! Maybe it was the lack of regular divers had emboldened it but at Little Beach a brazen Eastern Frogfish openly surveyed passing marine life. There was still much to enjoy underwater.