It is, after all, a steel town; an industrial bastion of BHP Billiton, and without much to commend it as a tourist destination.  Well, we wanted to visit Whyalla because of a unique marine environment phenomenon. 

Every year, between the months of May and August, thousands and thousands of giant cuttlefish gather in the rocky shoals of the Whyalla coastline to mate and lay their eggs. 

In the past, they numbered in the hundreds of thousands.  It is said that the bottom of the bay was so thick with them you couldn’t see the seabed.  Tragically, the cuttlefish were discovered by commercial fishermen, and the take was devastating.  Boats came in and took tonnes each day, each boat, day in and day out.  It seems almost impossible to believe that this sort of shortsighted destruction still takes place, but it does.  In any case, the local dive operator, Tony Bramley, saw that the population would soon be depleted, and he lobbied to have safety zones created for the cuttlefish. 

It took two seasons, and the safety zone is only in place from one year to the next, but because of Tony and other members of the Whyalla Dive Club, the cuttlefish now have a chance of making a comeback.  Cuttlefish are members of the cephalopod family, which includes octopus and squid.  This is a curious, intelligent animal that is fascinating to dive with.  They can change their shape to mimic surrounding rocks and seaweed, and they can communicate with each other via a rapid flow of colour change across their bodies.

I am always thrilled to encounter any member of the cephalopod family when I dive, and the chance to be in the water with hundreds of them all together seemed too good to be true.