Diving

The Steps Dives

I've dived at The Steps once:

Dive number Date Site Location Area Country Wreck Freshwater Depth (m) Bottom time (min) Total time (min) Divers Quality Summary Equipment
391
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First dive Last dive
18 Feb 1989 The Steps Bicheno Tasmania Australia 30 20 25 Iain Hosking, Mark Inall Five stars Still sunny, but rough - many white horses. Descended to weedy bottom at 16m, swam anticlockwise round reef to SE corner, where there's a big cave formed by house-sized boulders. Max depth here of 30m. Abundant fish - bullseyes most common, then leatherjacket, banded morwong. Saw scalyfin for the first time in Tasmania (white-ear). Other fish - blue-throated wrasse, catfish and ornate cowfish (in weed at the end of the dive). Usual masses of sponges. Basket star - a black and white starfish with branched legs. When unravelled from the sponge it looks like [illustration in logbook]. Found two cuttlefish under an overhang and witnessed their amazing colour changes. They go red when startled (ie when they first see you) and spread their tentacles wide. When relaxed their colour matches the background. It happens very quickly. With torch off it was easier to see the changes - one showed bands of light and dark moving swiftly forwards to its head (4-5 per second). Amazing. Vis was tremendous - saw the boat from the bottom at 30m. Watched the others get into the boat (and cavitation bubbles from the prop) from the 6m stops. Forgot to unplug suit inflation hose before getting into the boat, and pulled the fitting out of the suit. Very wet!