We headed down the Mornington Peninsula for a night and Blairgowrie Pier and London Bridge Snorkelling. Weather was forecast to be a very light northerly on the first day and a late-afternoon low tide. So we started with a swim at Blairgowrie Pier in the morning, then headed to London Bridge rockpool in the afternoon, before a second swim at Blairgowrie the following morning.
In the end, we didn’t really swim in water deeper than about 1.5m. When Blairgowrie Pier and London Bridge snorkelling, most of the wildlife we found was in less than 30cm.
You can read more about Blairgowrie as a snorkel site in my guide.
Blairgowrie (day 1)
We entered the water at the dive platform and swum up to the end and turned left along the back wall. In all, we were in the water for about 3.5 hours. The highlight had to be the nudibranchs. Several species, plus a lovely sapsucker and baby seahorses! They float around near the surface attached to bits of seagrass. Some of them are tiny.
London Bridge Rock Pool (day 1)
This site, like all back-beaches, can be dangerous. But the tide was really low (<0.3m) and the swell was only moderate. We got there about 90 minutes before low tide and the whole rock pool was exposed. We left by 7:30pm, as some waves had begun to wash over the rocks (it’s not worth risking a rogue wave). It was lovely and warm and the water crystal clear. We swam for about 3 hours.
One of the coolest things to see here is the Evan’s Sea Spider. We came across this one by chance. It was only about 1 cm across and crawling over the sand. They are tough to find in the abundant seaweed. A little weed shrimp was fun too. They look like the commensural shrimps you find in SE Asia. Most of what we found was on the margins of the rockpool and oftentimes it was quite hard to swim as there was almost no depth of water.
Blairgowrie (day 2)
Another 2.5 hours in the water but it was now overcast. There was a fresh southerly wind, which is fine here, as the site is protected by land. We started in the seagrass just to the west of the pier. But this time we didn’t bother going further than about 5 pylons up, where the depth was about 30cm.
The best thing was finding the pygmy squid in the clumps of weed in the bare sand areas. Also, a groovy headshield slug and a very cryptic Shorthead Seahorse.
