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Kayaking is growing in popularity for many reasons.
- The price of Fuel and environmental awareness is turning many power boaters towards the more Eco-friendly sport.
- Fitness awareness “Other than doing Pilate's and aerobics, its also one of the best workouts.”
- With a little instruction, "people can have a very positive experience the first time out”.
- “No petrol, no boat licence, no ramp fee's or queue.
- It also has little environmental impact. Working with nature not against it”.
The sport is now more accessible to all.
Kayaks are now made of rotomoulded plastic, Kevlar and fiberglass that greatly reduces the need for exceptional upper body strength in order to move and carry boats. A kayak they can handle on and off the car, and they can use it without anyone around to help them.
Kayak diving and fishing.
Dive boats and RIB's certainly have their place (we've got one) but there are many advantages to diving/fishing from a kayak. Conventional shore diving/fishing can be limiting and frustrating because there are many excellent dives that are just offshore, on reefs, islands, wrecks and at the base of cliffs, that can only be reached by boat. Most of these can be reached on a Kayak.
You can either paddle, pedal or sail out, moor up or drag the kayaks ashore for a shore dive, or use an anchor for diving/fishing offshore.
You have to be organised with regard to equipment etc. Kayaking fishing, like diving is a wet environment susceptible to change, specialist waterproof equipment is required to survive these harsh wet elements. Diving equipment is designed for this.
Mills Reef
Reef Dive |
Boat access
Depth: 5 m (16 ft) to 20 m (66 ft)
Level: Open Water and beyond.
Mills Reef is a distinctive T-shape reef that runs 100 metres out to sea from the sandy shore between Killarney and Port Fairy off the Princes Highway on Victoria's Shipwreck Coast. It features a 10 to 15-metre vertical wall a further 50 metres out which takes you down to a sandy bottom at 20 metres and provides excellent diving.
One of the best dives around Port Fairy, Mills Reef has lots of fish and invertebrate life.
The wall at Mills Reef is best reached from a boat and is easily spotted using a depth sounder. The weed growth on the submerged rock shelf makes an entry from shore a bit of a chore, but not impossible. Nice site for snorkelling.
There are several other reefs in the area which run out to sea from the sandy shore.
Boats can be launched at the Port Fairy, Griffiths Street Boat Ramp or the Killarney Bay East Boat Ramp. Diving Mills Reef requires calm conditions and a very low swell. See WillyWeather (Killarney Beach) as a guide for the tide times and the height of the tide.
{{southern-ocean-warning}}Divers have the opportunity to catch Abalone at this dive site. Remember your catch bag, legal abalone tool, current Victorian Recreational Fishing Licence, and abalone measure. Please abide by all current fishing regulations if you intend to catch abalone.
See article-catching-abalone for practical abalone hunting advice from The Scuba Doctor, plus melbourne-abalone-dives for a list of other Abalone dive sites near Melbourne.
Divers have the opportunity to catch Southern Rock Lobster (aka Crayfish) at this dive site. Remember your catch bag, current Victorian Recreational Fishing Licence, rock lobster measure, and cray tags. Once you get back to the dive boat, or shore, make sure you clip the tail and tag your Crayfish as per Fisheries requirements. Please abide by all current fishing regulations if you intend to catch crays. See article-catching-crayfish for practical cray hunting advice from The Scuba Doctor, plus melbourne-cray-dives for a list of other crayfish dive sites near Melbourne. For tips on cooking your Crays, please see article-cooking-crayfish.
Traditional Owners — This dive site is in the traditional Country of the Eastern Maar people of south-western Victoria between the Shaw and Eumerella Rivers and from Yambuk in the south to beyond Lake Linlithgow in the north. This truly ancient Country extends as far north as Ararat and encompasses the coastal townships of Port Fairy in the west, Warrnambool, Peterborough, Port Campbell, Apollo Bay, Lorne, and Airies Inlet in the east, including the Great Ocean Road area. It also stretches 100 metres out to sea from low tide and therefore includes the iconic Twelve Apostles. "Eastern Maar" is a name adopted by the people who identify as Maar, Eastern Gunditjmara, Tjap Wurrung, Peek Whurrong, Kirrae Whurrung, Kuurn Kopan Noot and/or Yarro waetch (Tooram Tribe) amongst others. We wish to acknowledge the Eastern Maar as Traditional Owners. We pay respect to their Ancestors and their Elders, past, present and emerging.
Mills Reef Location Map
Latitude: 38° 22.067′ S (38.367788° S / 38° 22′ 4.04″ S)
Longitude: 142° 17.171′ E (142.286183° E / 142° 17′ 10.26″ E)
Datum: WGS84 |
Google Map
Added: 2021-07-03 09:04:41 GMT, Last updated: 2022-05-23 19:13:37 GMT
Source: Google Earth
Nearest Neighbour: Mills Reef Beach, 924 m, bearing 30°, NNE
Killarney, Shipwreck Coast.
Depth: 5 to 20 m.
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DISCLAIMER: No claim is made by The Scuba Doctor as to the accuracy of the dive site coordinates listed here. Should anyone decide to use these GPS marks to locate and dive on a site, they do so entirely at their own risk. Always verify against other sources.
The marks come from numerous sources including commercial operators, independent dive clubs, reference works, and active divers. Some are known to be accurate, while others may not be. Some GPS marks may even have come from maps using the AGD66 datum, and thus may need be converted to the WGS84 datum. To distinguish between the possible accuracy of the dive site marks, we've tried to give each mark a source of GPS, Google Earth, or unknown.
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