Mornington Pier, Melbourne VIC Australia
Location |
Mornington Pier |
Depth |
6 to 10 meters |
Entry |
Not many places to exit so the best place to enter and exit is at
the end of the pier where 3 ladders are placed. A giant stride from
the 3 meter high car park wall near the ladders. |
Bottom |
Varied bottom depending on the area which means you wont get bored
as its changing the whole dive. Lots of large ledges and bolders,
to sea grass covered rocks to silty mud. Lots of growth on rocks under
the pier. |
Life |
Squid, old wife, octopus, hermit crabs, leather jackets, cow fish,
pot bellied seahorses plus more. |
Comments |
The bottom has lots of silt so dont dive near someone with bad bcd
control, it will take ages to clear. Shops open late in morningtons
main street for beer or coffee ect. |
Parking |
Free anytime ! because its free the parking is always packed on
a nice day and still half full at night. If the car park is full you
could be up for a 200+ meter walk, if empty it can be a 4 meter walk
to the water. |
Gearing up in the shallows at the start of the pier in mornington. Viz
was around 8 to 10 meters with no waves or wind and water temp of about
19 degrees celcius.
Old Wifes swim past in a school at about 5 meters deep. No flash used.
The northern pacific sea star are taking over and eating all the life.
You can see how thick they are in some areas. Thankfully divers remove
them from the water to help keep the numbers down even if its only for
a short while. Its actually illegal to retun these starfish to the water
if you take them out as they are a huge problem to the native life, so
take as many as you can carry on the swim back and dump them into the
bin. Orange and fruit string bags fit inside a bcd pocket or can be tucked
up a sleve of your wetsuit. Make sure its only these orange colored 5
leged starfish that you remove.
Magpie perch at mornington pier at 7 meters deep under the pier, flash
used.
Some areas under the Mornington Pier have a muddy silt which is easy
to stir up and ruin a photo. Fuffer fish taken with flash under pier at
about 5 meters deep.
A very tame boar fish at mornington pier at around 7 meters deep.
One of my buddies was a bit camera shy ;)
A photo of the camera man taking a break at 10 meters with a Jack Daniels
can.
A moonlighter fish in front of a large rock covered in sea grass which
is all along one side of the pier, funnily the starfish dont seem to eat
the seagrass as theres plenty of it covering the rocks.
A wrasse, moonlighter and a leather jacket all in the one
ledge.
Night Diving at Mornington Pier
Sea Cucumber, heaps of these with different colours and patterns are
out at night moving around.
Sea grass and soft corals with lots of crabs around picking up after
the fisherman.
Lots of seagrass and silt.
|