This weekends predicted dive conditons for the sunny coast.

If BOM is correct about the wind and swell for this weekend, looks like most all of the sunny coast is going to be epic!
Last weekend and the weekend before was like back in the early 80s.
This is what it may be like and this was last weekend, smooth clear reasonable temperature water.
https://youtu.be/Pk07-v0q7_Q

BRB, booking a flight to go diving this weekend, lol.

ReeferRob wrote:BRB, booking a flight to go diving this weekend, lol.

Lol, shame you cant get here mate, the sunny coast doesn't get that clear very often, not since the 80s, the 90s brought more Cane farming and canal developments and that was the end of the common 10 to 15 metres vis and once a month water like air, all in close.
I remember my dads inboard Glastron in 82 or 83, not sure, with seats up the front, on the way from an area called the outer nearings spot X to the deep areas of currumundi reef going over roughly 90 to 100 feet of water showing on our old paper sounder, I could see the bottom as I learnt over the front of the boat all the way to the next reef.
Quite often we would head out and go over the blue water current going along the less clearer waters and go along it watching all the large fish patrolling along it, it was like going along a cliff looking over the front of the boat, a low vis wall with 30 to 40 metres vis up against it, so cool!
Between rain events and over population the very clear waters from back then are much rarer every where in SEQ these days.
The needed weather conditions with some in close east ausy currents happening has made it up the coast real good, for these days that is!
Of course what gets moved away up thee comes down here, so out off Stradbroke island as the current forces water in the northern end of Moreton bay, out through the bar, then the straddie reefs cop the crap and the dirtier water is much colder, ouch, nasty thermoclines!! That's why moreton bay, before climate change really set in and the whites that remembered the whaling station in the bay, had the most white pointers compared to anywhere, our ausy shark hunter from back then would pull at least a hundred out of the bay each year.
Things change, but up the coast, I hope some divers get into it this weekend, the close in reefs will have good vis and be full of crays!!! They come in for the cool winter waters.

If I could I'd be there, but the accident put me back on no fly for 3 more months. We'll go out and do something when we come down there, probably in the next 2 years. When we go down to the Florida Keys we don't do much touristy diving. We have friends there that run a collecting business and we go out with them and help out. I know George is always grateful for extra hands and we have him ship some stuff up to us that we collected. The last time we were out M got cornered by a 5 metre Tiger shark. It's always better off the beaten path with someone that knows where to find things. Catching angels is a whole lot easier when you have 3 people working a barrier net.

I was that kid that was always in a puddle looking for something. I just wish it wasn't so difficult to export from there, there are a few things that I'd love to bring home and one of them isn't a damn Drop Bear, lol!! Right after the Gulf war I collected a pair of Emporers, a Sunshine Dottyback and 6 rocks of Pulsing Xenia, hopped a transport with my 2 coolers full of loot and headed back home. I found out later that they'd have put me UNDER the jail if they'd have caught me. I'd been watching this pair of Emporers for a week and the little Sunshine Dottybacks too. I didn't think to ask, I'd seen other taking fish. Israel was a mess and I didn't have a clue as to who to ask, not that it excuses it.

cool!! my old fence nets were 90 feet and 60 feet and you are right, a few divers scaring them in works best.

Yeh, here the balina angel is seriously protected, I know where there is a community of them in just 80 feet of water just inside NSW, neve touched them, too risky, but a guy I know of, cant stand him, at around maybe 10 years back, there were three a diver got to go to him, one got bent and died there, one died at his place and the other got out of the country supposedly as an albino personifer, lol, lol, we don't have personifers this side of auz, this side they are meredithi and the border guys had no idea, lol.
They sell for well over thirty thousand US dollars each, if they can be gotten out! Near a hundred thousand retail!

I wouldn't have done it if I'd have known it was illegal. Even so, ignorance of the law is no excuse. They are both now on display at the National Aquarium in Baltimore so they're probably 30+ years old at this point. Which reminds me that I need to send them an email to check on my fish, lol. I often wonder how much of the Pulsing Xenia here in the US can trace its lineage back to those rocks. Incidentally, that stuff makes a great nutrient sink, it soaks up nitrates and phosphates like nobody's business. I have trays of it in my shop on the coral runs and they look great.

I had to look that angel up, I'd never even heard of it. It's absolutely stunning though. I think something that rare is a good candidate for captive breeding in the right hands. One of my Indo suppliers is BA, who is breeding Clarion angels. The price I pay to them before shipping for a Clarion that's 8-9cm is $3556 USD. I see 2-3 of them come through New York each week and all I can think is it must be nice to have that sort of disposable income for a fish. It would retail north of $7000 USD.