18 September 2005 (Day 13)

Our last day of diving in Exmouth. As Skywest had changed the time of our return flight to 11:45am, we would not be able to dive the second dive as PADI recommends a 24 hour period between multi-day, multi-dives and flying.
We headed out of Seazone again, but this time there were twenty-two others. We have been spoilt with the space available on the boat over the week.
The wind was coming from the south east and made it really choppy. We headed out to Murion Islands and after a bit of discussion with Darren (the skipper) and Ben we headed to Cod Spot again. On the way out we saw a Manta Ray at the surface, but we wanted to see one whilst we were diving.
We jumped in at Cod Spot – supposedly a maximum depth of 16 metres. We were offered the choice of going by ourselves or guided by Ben. We went with Ben as we were certain we could navigate our way back to the boat with the strong currents that could occur.
Pretty much saw the same as last time – three wobbegongs, white tip reef shark, cods, bannerfish, wrasse. In Ben’s group of about eight, we were the first to come up. We had our safety stop on the anchor line – holding on we were being thrown up and down. It was funny to watch Helen go up as Daniel went down and vice-versa.
When we came up we weren’t the first out of the water for a change – and somehow Daniel had managed to get to 17.7 metres. Darren said he must have taken a shovel with him! But with the time and depth, it again put us in a recommended safety stop situation.
We had lunch on board after a long journey to find somewhere calmer to stop. We ended up at Fraggle Rock. After lunch the other divers went down, but I didn’t hold too much hope for them – the swell and wind would have created terrible visibility. Daniel gave the camera to Ben to photograph that elusive Manta Ray that would go by, given we weren’t in the water!
About an hour later people came up and were saying that visibility was about 3 metres and that we didn’t miss anything. Good! …. and no Manta Rays!
When we headed back into the mariner there was yet another phone message from Skywest. Our flight has been put back to 2:30pm. We could have dived! We were not impressed.
That night we invited the staff at the dive shop over for a bbq and a beer at the Stalag, but only Ben turned up – as usual, heaps of food was left over which will just have to go into the bin.
Tomorrow we say ‘goodbye’ to Exmouth and head to Perth and stay at Fremantle – good food, good beer (Redback!) and close to Margaret River (good wine!) and hopefully a phone line to connect to the Internet.