After breakfast, we left Dunsborough for the drive back to Perth. We arrived at about 3pm, having eaten lunch en-route. We had short time to kill before we had to be at the dive shop in Subiaco (a pleasant suburb to the west of Perth). In Fremantle, John collected his new bank card from the National Bank, visited Elizabeth’s second-hand bookshop in South Terrace to exchange some books (they don’t actually buy books off you, but they give you a voucher to put towards more books). Then we quickly made our way out to Subiaco, where we found a quiet table at Oriel’s café in Hay Street to read up on ‘Night Diving’ before our dive.
The dive took place at ‘Bicton Baths’, on the Swan River. After reading up on the highlights that we might expect on a night dive, with its dramatic world of colourful coral and inquisitive fish, we have to confess to being somewhat disappointed to be diving in a murky river. The only sea-life we saw were some sea-pins, urchins, prawns, crabs, and a mass of (harmless) jelly fish! Our navigation exercise was predictably disastrous as the current was strong, and we had had no time to familiarise ourselves with the equipment. But no matter. We followed ‘John DB’ in the gloom, between the yacht club piles, taking care not to blind each other with the powerful torches, or stir up the bottom with our fins. Even so, there were a couple of occasions when one or other of us disappeared in an unexpected cloud of silt.
After 35 minutes, ‘John DB’ had caught enough crabs and prawns for a seafood dinner, and we clambered ashore. John (Rynne) discovered to his fury that he had lost yet another snorkel (an event, I am ashamed to say, that would not have gone unnoticed, even above the clamour of the nearby water polo club)!
It was past 10pm. We could not return the hired equipment at that time of night, so we had no choice but to rinse it off, and stow it under the van’s bed.