Written by Mikhail Vasiliev – Perth Scuba PADI Instructor.
This Sunday 19 June 2016 morning was perfect for diving, regardless of the meteorologists predicting 70% chance of rain. At the pre-dive batbeque, tasty sausages and bacon were quite popular with divers of all certification levels, from OW to Perth Scuba’s new Instructor Candidates now preparing for their exams next week.

Inspired by ProjectAware’s Adopt a Dive Site mission, the all-seasons experienced Manta Club crew (all twelve of them attending the Club dive today) decided on adopting a rather iconic dive site  – most will agree that Ammo Jetty is an outstanding diving destination which at the same time needs adopting, at least in terms of looking after its character. Also, for the sake of marine environment and the future of Perth diving.

Making sure we don’t get caught into any unexpected larger waves,  we headed carefully under one of the most prominent jetty structures (in terms of its resident marine life, photo opportunities and general dive quality), on a research mission aimed at identifying what objects/things/unexpected items might be found there today, so that future site maintenance missions can be better guided. A special slate (provided by projectaware.org) was used to record the findings. No doubt, we found, classified, categorised, and discussed the entirety of objects spotted, noticed, or found.

Somewhat unexpectedly, not even one portable fishing chair was found today. Only few explanations can be used for this fact: either the recent site clean-up operations conducted earlier this year were so successful (this one is true), or, less likely but plausible, fewer chairs were dropped under during the recent salmon run in May. That could be because the fishing action was so intense no one cared to sit down in-between catches recently. Otherwise, the usual list of findings applied – a few bricks, several large mackerels cut in halves for use as bait, heaps of fishing line bundles with hooks/sinkers, and of course a few beer bottles.

The general outlook beneath Ammo Jetty was actually quite optimistic, proving that regular care for your local dive sites goes a long way to ensuring dive quality and marine life continuity. Whilst we do not see a necessity of dropping a larhe rubbish bin next to this site for massive clean-up tomorrow, we could tell clearly that an operation like that will still be successful some time around Christmas.

The visibility was actually great, maybe up to 6 meters near the end of Jetty. 16C water felt good even from a wetsuit wearer perspective. I have no doubt many of today’s crew will agree, and expect everyone from today’s mission as well as all newly-certified open-water divers to be back next week and in the weeks thereafter, so that we explore deeper waters at nearby sites.

Everybody enjoyed researching the current state of this dive site. Thanks everyone for coming to this Manta Club dive! See you on next club dives soon.