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A Beautiful Byron Day

It was 5pm on Thursday and we had just had our big trip to Southwest Rocks called off due to a huge swell that was traveling up the coast. Some of the divers still wanted to dive on the weekend, so I made a last minute phone call to Sundive at Byron Bay and begged Giac to give us some spots for the Saturday. Lady luck was on our side; we had 11 spots on the first dive and 10 on the  third dive.

We left the Gold Coast around 4:30am and headed for Byron to meet up with the rest of the gang: Ashton, Sarah, Sophie, Luke, Will, Chris, Ryan, DD, Amanda, Seanan and Teagan. Only two of the divers had dived here before, so I was looking forward to taking the newbies to the rock, knowing that they would love it!

Our first dive was to the Cod Hole. It was a nice relaxing dive, around 15m vis and 23°c water temp. Just before the Cod Hole was a school of baitfish with one or two Jewfish hanging around and a few lionfish hunting the baitfish below. We also spotted a couple of white-spotted eagle rays on the way back to the mooring.

We were booked on to the third dive, but somebody had to sacrifice their dive as we only had 10 spaces. We headed into Byron to grab some food and check out the beach.

By the time we returned to the shop, Chris (Hero) had decided that he would sit out the last dive. He had dived Byron loads of times and he wanted to give some of the exchange students the chance to dive again. His last words to us as we left were 'you guys better not see a manta ray'. Unlikely, I thought because it was the end of the season for the mantas at Byron and I had been diving down here for 3 years and never seen one. I was just hoping that we would see a leopard shark or two for the first timers.

After a fun boat launch we arrived at the rock. This dive we were going to start in the Nursery and head to the Needles.

The first dive we did was a really nice dive...the second was one of the best ever! The first 10 minutes were spent slowly moving though the Nursery, checking out the juvenile fish and coral that reside there. As we passed through the first gully that leads to the Needles I spotted a leopard shark.

I slowed the group down and as discussed on the boat, if we saw a shark we would drop on to the sand if possible and let the curiosity of the shark bring it closer to us. It was at this point the rock started to turn it on! Within a minute there were 4 sharks cruising in close to us. I looked to the left and two big eagle rays were swooping in, just beyond the leopard sharks were 3 white spotted guitar rays and hanging in the middle of all this was a large mixed school of saw tails, goatfish and coral snappers.

We pretty much stayed there on the sand, transfixed on the show. I was wondering what else could turn up...I was answered by 6 large yellow tail kingfish and 2 snapper. After 15 minutes we started, reluctantly, to move out of the Needles but after a couple of minutes the water started to get a bit dirty, so we turned around and headed back to where we had seen the sharks.

All of a sudden Luke started to flap his arms wildly. His movements were so frantic I knew he had seen something special. We all moved  over to Luke's position and eyes widened as a manta came into view.

The last 10 minutes of the dive we spent with this wondrous animal. It was just hanging there. It allowed us to get so close you could reach out and touch it. At one point I was swimming alongside and looking into its eye, and there was a moment of connection. It's hard to put into words, but I have heard people talk about a similar experience with whale encounters. It was one of the coolest moments of my life:)

In the pub after the dives the table was alive with the experience we had just all encountered. Poor Chris was gutted, but he's on his way to South Africa soon to work with great whites on an internship, so we know his turn to gloat will come.

As we left Byron I reflected on the day, my best dive at the rock, great dive buddies, good times.... simply a beautiful Byron day!