Port Macdonnell Mount Gambier Victor Harbour Adelaide
Kangaroo Island Yorke Peninsula Spencer Gulf Port Lincoln
Between Port Lincoln and the Western Australian border (some 1200 kilometres) there are no air services, dive services, or charter boat services. Shore diving is possible in many areas and boats can be launched at Elliston, Port Kenny, Streaky Bay, Smokey Bay and Ceduna.
Coffin Bay and Drummond Point have shore areas suitable for scuba diving but only when the seas are calm.
Most of the diving around this part of the country is done by professional spearfishermen, professional shell divers, amateur spearfisherman and abalone divers who dare to enter the inhospitable offshore reefs for the ocean's riches.
Charter vessels can be arranged out to the Nuyt's Archipelago where there are some excellent sites for scuba diving, snorkeling and underwater photography.
Names like Avoid bay, Coffin Bay and Anxious Bay, dont give one much confidence, especially if you are looking down from rugged limestone cliffs, into clear as crystal water and realise that you are going to be the only diver underwater for hundreds of kilometres, if you survive the climb down.
Masilon Island was one the Nuyts Archipelago Group. Mostly made up of eroded limestone with bays and beaches and huge sea grass meadows in the shallows. The islands were desolate and with a prehistoric air about them.
( photo: Neville Coleman)
Even out of the water, Sea Lions often have a nature presense of statue that should remind us of how close we came to losing such magnificent animals in the sealing days. They may not be as big as whales, but they also stand as a succes story for the protection of species and concept of eco - tourism.
( photo: Neville Coleman)
The Investigator Group of islands off Elliston has some good diving, but the weather must be right to get out there. Most of the year the islands are pounded by huge seas and its very deep water.
Unidentified southern feather star of the genus Ptilometra sp. this yellow form was only encountered once at 64 metres.
( photo: Neville Coleman)
The old farmhouse on the Isle of St. Francis gave some insight into the spirit of the early Australian pioneers. Fancy building a house way out here and growing vegtables and running sheep to sell back to the township of Ceduna on the mainland.
To me it was inconceivable to even comprehend the obstacles that must have had to be overcome to even think of it, let alone have the guts and foresight to do it.
( photo: Neville Coleman)
Further up the coast off Ceduna, the Nuyts Archipelago has a number of interesting dive locations. Isles of St. Francis, West Island, Egg Island, Masilon Island and Fenelon Island are all diveable with underwater terrain and conditions ranging from 20 mrtre visibility in dense sea grass meadows shallows, down to 3 metre visibility at 64 metres on the giant boulder seascapes off Egg Island. Its only fame due to having once been the location for where the biggest White Pointer in the world had been caught.
Growing from a giant boulder at 64 metres this sea fan Mopsea sp. was one of the 9 images I managed on my deepest ever dive. I had my camera rigged with close ups and just shot 9 images at the same distance, as I was unshore how the darkness, the cold, and the anxiety of being so deep would affect me regarding nitrogen narcosis. As it was, my dive plan worked perfectly and I had no noticeable affects.
( photo: Neville Coleman)
On the way down the anchor rope for my 3 minutes on the bottom all I could see was 1 metre of rope ahead and a black abyss of uncertainty below.
At 64 metres there are carpets of red algae, giant sea fans, huge Rock Lobsters and strong currents, all part of the dim, shadowless depths.
However, at 64 metres I did manage to take 9 in - focus pictures with my bulb flash Rollei marine camera, collect what I took images of, made it back up the anchor rope hand over hand and complete my dive as planned.
In 1971 actually finding a live Cuviers Sea Cucumber Ceto cuvieria in natural habitat was extraordinary. There were only a few specimens in the South Australian Museum collections and they had been dredged from deep water over 140 years ago and they were thought to be very rare.
At the time, getting the first images of live ones was very special. However, that was only lasted till we got to South Western Australia, where there six at least perched on top of every big sponge, at only 20 metres.
( photo: Neville Coleman)
The other divers got caught in the currents, turned up on the surface a kilometre away and had to be rescued by the rock lobster boat we were on. Getting the anchor up was a daunting tast as it was stuck in the rocks way below and eventually we had to go up the mast to be able to maintain sight of the divers on the surface.
There was no problem finding the Southern Feather Star Ptilometra macronema in deep water, they were everwhere. ( photo: Neville Coleman)
Not my most favourite dive site, but one I am glad to have been on as no one had ever dived there before and the scientific expedition did find some good material for the South Australian Museum and South Australian Fisheries.
My very first experience with a male Australian Sea Lion Neophoca cinera was also a "learning experience". Seconds after I pulled the trigger on this image, the bull sea lion roared and took off, straight at me. I had no idea they could actually move so fast on land and noticing the size of its teeth as it roared, I fled along the beach with no wish to get " close ups".
I managed to make it to the rocks at the other side of the beach with the bull hot on my heals. I went straight up to the highest rock and just kept going till I thought I was safe. I turned around and there was the bull at the end of the beach on the way back to his hareum.
The other expedition people were also there, rolling around with laughter at my antics. After all, it was these same scientists who told me it would be ok. to take pictures of the bull in the first place.
( photo: Neville Coleman)
From Ceduna onwards to the Western Australian border, its dry,semi - arid country which gives way to the Nullarbor ( without trees) and the 130 metre high limestone cliffs of divers 'no mans land'.
Port Macdonnell Mount Gambier Victor Harbour Adelaide
Kangaroo Island Yorke Peninsula Spencer Gulf Port Lincoln
Neville Coleman's diving expeditions, fauna surveys, photographic fauna surveys and marine life identification courses include every major group of marine life.
Neville Coleman's expertise in marine life identification extends to the identification of Algae, Sea Grass, Forams, Sponges, Stony Corals, Soft Corals, Sea Anemones, Sea Jellies, Zoanthids, Corallimorphs, Black Corals, Flatworms, Segmented Worms, Crustaceans, Barnacles, Shrimps, Rock Lobsters, Hermit Crabs, Squat Lobsters, Molluscs, Chitons, Univalves, Bivalves, Cephalopods, Octopus, Cuttlefish, Squid, Opisthobranchs, Nudibranchs, Sea Slugs, Bryozoans, Sea Mosses, Echinoderms, Sea Stars, Feather Stars, Brittle Stars, Sea Urchins, Sea Cucumbers, Ascidians/Sea Squirts, Marine Fish, Sharks and Marine Mammals, all found in the waters along the coastal reefs and jetties around Eyre Peninsula, Nuyt's Archipelago and the Great Australian Bight.
( Copyright Neville Coleman/Nigel Marsh)
