curlewis yak dive

[paddlepop]

nice footage. Ive a lumix....goes with me everywhere...found its far better than the Nikon DSLR in minus30 !!

Must get out for a yak dive soon.

[maverick]

or another night snorkel?

[ELM]

Nice report Leigh and footage as well. It is a crying shame that the reef has diminished in such a way.

Have you ever heard of "Reef Watch" as they are always looking for volunteers and reports on reefs in the bay and surrounding areas. You can report on reef qualities when ever you dive and that information may actually assist in stopping pro fishing in the future. If you are a keen diver and interested in protecting the local reefs, it's certainly worth investigating.

[skip]

Great pics and video Leigh,
specially like the nice clean yellow Outback
Cheers
Skip

[blinky]

hey elm I've been spearing / snorkling the corio bay and bellarine area's for 6 years now. I had roughly a year off last year for various reasons, but since getting back in the swing in recent months I have noticed some massive changes particularly in curlewis, alcoa, and grammar lagoon. grammar used to have massive amounts of really long weed growing between the bar and the boat moorings. i guestimate about 1/2 to 2/3 of it is just mud now. the alcoa pier used to have a weed bed that ran from the pier all the way round to curlewis. a couple months back a friend and i swam in a SSE directrion from alcoa pier in about 2 mtrs depth and found a huge area of bare weed beds that looked like it had just been swept clean. The only thing left was urchins and weed roots. My guts tell me that the eco system has been upset by removal of too many fish critical to the balance of these shallow weed areas. Hopefully i'm wrong and its just a natural phenomena. I willl check out reef watch.

Leigh

[Matt.A]

hey elm I've been spearing / snorkling the corio bay and bellarine area's for 6 years now. I had roughly a year off last year for various reasons, but since getting back in the swing in recent months I have noticed some massive changes particularly in curlewis, alcoa, and grammar lagoon. grammar used to have massive amounts of really long weed growing between the bar and the boat moorings. i guestimate about 1/2 to 2/3 of it is just mud now. the alcoa pier used to have a weed bed that ran from the pier all the way round to curlewis. a couple months back a friend and i swam in a SSE directrion from alcoa pier in about 2 mtrs depth and found a huge area of bare weed beds that looked like it had just been swept clean. The only thing left was urchins and weed roots. My guts tell me that the eco system has been upset by removal of too many fish critical to the balance of these shallow weed areas. Hopefully i'm wrong and its just a natural phenomena. I willl check out reef watch.

Leigh

No it's the netters with the seine nets, they tear up everything in their path. Alcoa and curlewis are regularly targeted by them, though I don't know about grammar school.

[ELM]

G'day Leigh, I think like most of us on here, I hate what the nets do and how you notice the drop in catch after they have been through. But it is only really the divers that get to see just what damage has been done first hand, whole areas of weed torn out or small fragile reefs flattened, and then there is the by catch that is thrown dead or injured over the back.
When I joined Reef Watch years ago (no longer active), I was given a set of waterproof, color photo ID sheets (local to this region) that covered 95 fish (including shark, ray, sea horse/dragons, basic fish species), 63 Invertebrates (including crabs/cray/bugs, soft coral/sponges/anemone, sea stars, abalone/scallop/clams, cuttle/calamari/octopus) and finally 26 plants + 3 pest species. These are attached to a white board and also has a waterproof records sheet so you count off/mark what you see while diving.
Then when you get home, you log in online with your own ID, and fill in position, time, fish etc. They also run "The Great Victorian Fish Count" (a united fish count on one particular day) which is held in conjunction with Coast Care week. All this goes into a data base and the records can then show if there are any dramatic changes to an environment. It may be problems from netters or possibly destruction from Southern Pacific Sea Stars, you may also find new or rare species that will need protection, or just show that certain areas are holding their own even with the pressures of recreational fishing.

Only way to stop the netters, is to have proof of the damage they are doing to these very fragile micro environment,s and then protest to the governing bodies and greater public.

Just having the ID sheets also changed the way I dived, how I started to take more notice of everything around me not just the fish and pretty colored sponges that I swam past, arm reached for the next scallop.

Anyway, keep up the yak diving reports and video's, always enjoy them.

[blinky]

dug up the old footage I had of this particular reef in curlewis from 2010. I put a utube video of it together with the new footage of the same spot.

I did see the reef one time after it was recently flattened but didnt document it. As far as i've seen the pacific sea star isnt prevelent in this area.

[vikodin]

I noticed you gave the video of the net? (or someone else did - wasn't me) to friends of corio bay action group.
Its posted on their facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Friends- ... 0909343052
I think it is a great video to show how much the netters care for the bay and might help in the fight.
Cheers Leigh

[blinky]

yeah that was me who posted it on friends of corio bay.