Alligator Head
13th January 2007
The club trip to Alligator Head struggled to find many divers interested in a trip to this part of the Sounds.
I was contacted by Stu Pope to see if I would take my boat and anyone interested out to Alligator Head. Mark Hellewell, Grant Thorn, and friend Mark Kerr were keen to go for a dive. I rounded up Trish Kennedy for a dive, and John Young as Boatman.
All up, there were six of us heading out from Duncan Bay at 7.30am. When we got to Alligator Head the sea was flat, and perfect for a trip out a bit further.
Our first dive was by Cape Lambert, looking for crays. This area has a lot of weed and requires divers looking for crays to battle through the weed to find them. We came up from this dive with nine crays. We then decided to do a spot of Cod fishing at Cape Lambert, and got a nice lot of real big cod.
From this we moved to Port Gore for a Scallop dive, and Trish, Grant and Mark H gathered some, and John the boatman, snorkeled and came up with about thirty. After a bit of discussion it was decided to try across the Bay for more Crays. An area of big rocks with big gaps underneath was found and another twelve Crays were caught. Three of these Crays were good sized fish, and were a thrill for those who caught them. We then went back to the scallops and each of us gathered the rest of our fifty scallop quota.
By this time we had all used up three tanks, and had definitely done enough diving for one day. It was a bonus for the divers to have a Dive Master on board, who kept a record of dive times and who was also a vigilant observer...thanks John.
We arrived back at Duncan Bay at about 5.30pm, and I think we would have all been a tired bunch by the time we got to bed that night.
Peter Barnett
