coastal snorkelling in Victoria?

G'day all,

I'm interested in peoples recommendations for snorkelling sites around coastal Victoria.

My Missus isn't comfortable around water, so I'm easing her into the comfort zone before we can begin diving. This involves trying to find spots that are easily reachable from the coast to allow her to experiance the "magic". We did Pope's Eye on the weekend (thanks to Fiona and the guys at QDC). The experiance has lit the spark

So, what spots are worth it? Ideally they should be easy to access, reasonably safe, full of variety, etc? Basically (yes, it is a big ask!) I'm looking for sites that will allow me to fan that spark into a flame.

Looking forward to your suggestions and experiances.

Thanks!

Contributed by xntrek added 2006-03-13

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xntrek added 2006-03-19

Seems strange to reply to my own post, but I thought I'd add comments in case anyone else is interested.

Just got back from Portsea. We started off along the pier and then headed west along the coastline to a small rockreef (see this map).

Water was coolish (15*C), visibility ranged from 5-15 metres (a lot of sand churn) and there was a strong swell heading E-NE.

You need to keep an ear and eye out for boat and jetski traffic along the outer edge of the reef too. Oh, and those who dip a line in as well - lots of squid jigs apparently.

Quite a few varieties of fish were there to be spotted among the flora - we saw a number of baby rays, leatherjackets, perch, porcupine fish, crabs, a single cat shark, a stargazer (although the missus claims it was a stonefish), old wives and schooling whiting to name a few.

One of the locals told us on a good day you can also see cuttlefish, the odd sea spider, spider crabs, and sea dragons ... maybe next time :)

Also, apparently there's another reef further east known as Franklin Point. Maybe we'll try it out next time. If anyone has experienced this dive, please let us know how you went.

Oh, and if you know of other sites that are worth checking out, let us know that as well!

-- Knocked, you weren't in. -- Oppurtunity.

xntrek added 2006-03-19

The Map I tried to insert as a link above was : http://www.street-directory.com.au/aus_new/genmap.cgi?sizex=400&sizey=400&x=144.711981865912&y=-38.3182787984786&level=6&star=&circle=&xyfile=

-- Knocked, you weren't in. -- Oppurtunity.

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