Strange Currents

Conrad Nelson enjoying the fine conditions.

The conditions the last few weeks have been really odd. Sure summer has prevailing onshore winds from the north east, but we have had only a day and a half of southerlies in more that 40 days!

The sea has gotten cold and has mostly had a 'lovely' pea green tinge to it. All this right smack bang when we should be climbing into the Couta in 25- 27 degree summer water. I have been keeping myself busy taking pics of surfing and catching a few waves in between.

So when the weekend s conditions looked good my first thoughts were ...hey the surf will be good, and not lets dive all day! I organise with a mate to go take water shots at Tiffanies on his Stand Up Paddle Board and was vet suprised to see how clean the water was. In fact it wasnt that chilly either,

Straight away I knew that I was going to be missing out on some fish, but I had baked my cake and was going to enjoy it :-)
After taking some good pics, I grabbed a paddle board and got a few waves for myself. While at the back I noticed a spearo swimming in with some Couta. I paddle across to him and he had 4 or 5 good fish.

That was it ... I packed up went home had a fat chow, and jumped into bed to recover from swimming for 3 hours and then paddling for another few. By the time I woke up packed my dive gear and swam all the way to the drop off it was 5pm and there were some mates already swimming back in. The water had gotten cold again and they said that it was dead. I was there and thought lets just try ..who knows what will swim passed. Anyway I hit a luck and got 2 Couta , one was a good fish of 18kg!

The guys who I passed wernt to impressed after not seeing anything for a few hours, I guess I was just lucky.

The sea is still clean-ish with a strange south north current that pushes when the north east backs off. There is Southerly predicted on Wednesday maybe that will bring the warm water.

Will let you know

Coatesman