411 Dive Log Australasia April 2025

Male Box fish showing breeding colours

Stone fish seen at Steve’s Bommie

There are many swim throughs and coral overhangs at the Cod Hole. Some have sleeping White Tip reef sharks inside. I had seen sleeoing Potato Cod here in previous years but none today. 2024 had been a year to remember in Sydney for all of the wrong reasons. We had so many storm events and so many dives in dirty water and poor viz. Sadly, the weather up in Cairns had not been any better. There had been months of less than ideal weather. By a stroke of luck, the forecast was good for our trip and so we headed off to Osprey Reef overnight. When I disembarked a week later, I knew all of those same friendly faces and had become good friends. How did this happen? Much of it

On our second dive at the Cod Hole, a solitary Cod came out to greet us and spent a good five minutes allowing us to interact with it. We did not have any food for it but it seemed to be happy in our company and to pose for a photo. When we swam off, a huge heavy bodied Camouflage Cod was hovering in five metres of water. The really special feature of dives like the Cod Hole is that some very unusual fish become totally tame and unafraid of divers. This whopper reamined where it was for a good fifteen minutes. I was able to get a few photos, swim off and return later to get some more shots. I am sure that the fish thought that it was invisible or maybe invincible. Big fish are incredibly powerful.

A very friendly Potato Cod comes out to greet us

DIVE LOG Australasia #411- April‘25 70

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