About the site
I love Lonsdale Wall. It’s my favourite dive site in Melbourne – better than the scuttled wrecks, better than the really-hard-to-get-on reefs. Even in terrible conditions it’s usually not bad and on a good day it’s stunning. With good vis you can hang over the edge of the wall and look down into deep blue water below. If there’s a little bit of tide still running you can drift slowly along beside the yellow zooanthids and orange sponges, watching fish follow you curiously. In short, it’s nice.
About the dive
Sunday’s dive was the afternoon slack at the end of the flood tide. With good vis outside that morning I was looking forward to blue water and it didn’t disappoint. We dropped down and over the edge to find yellow-coated overhangs.
After a bit of drifting on through at about 30m, we headed up over the wall and into a fantastic sponge garden. I particularly liked the colours here in pink, purple and orange. I spent a fair bit of time sitting still after framing the sponges and waiting for fish to swim into view. The magpie perch in particular are very curious about their reflections in the dome port, and the wrasse cut laps while they try and work out what I’m doing there.
The water is starting to warm up and after the bit of non-diving travel I have coming up I’m looking forward to spending many more Sunday afternoons in a clear blue ocean.