Me along with a number of guys from our local dive club arrived at Point Lookout at the Northern End of Strabroke Island and we were looking forward to a couple of drift dives, we were devastated when told that all the diving had been cancelled.

We were told that the area was being invaded by baitfish and that it would be too dangerous to dive anywhere near to them.

For blokes like me who are relatively new to the area I did not really understand the implications of this statement and not wanting to show my ignorance on the subject I just kept quiet.

After driving back home feeling more than a little brassed off I sat down to watch a bit of television and catch the local news.

It was when the news came on and the lead story of the evening,‘Masses of Baitfish Herded into the beaches of North Stradbroke Island’As you may imagine my attention was well and truly on the TV, it turns out that at this time of year huge numbers of Baitfish congregate along the coast and basically put up a sign ‘Come and Eat Us’.

The news story, with some fantastic aerial footage showed Point Lookout and an area 2km in length by 400mtrs wide totally made up of Baitfish and attacking at all angles more sharks than I thought possible, the guy on camera gave the numbers as over 200 hundred sharks, mainly Bull Sharks and Bronze Whalers.Awesome TV.

The thing that amazed me more was the fact that the sharks, when in a feeding frenzy lose all sense of direction because a number got caught in the surf and were beached, along with crazy people standing in the surf fishing while all of this was going on.

One thing I have learnt since moving here is whenever anybody puts up a sign saying ‘beach closed’ or ‘diving cancelled’ there is normally a bloody good reason for it!

Having spent the better part of my diving life around Lanzarote, Canary Islands, I am more than a little taken aback by the amount of things over here that want to do you harm. But a word of warning to you Canary Island boys the next time you see a bait ball just think what may be lurking just out of sight line!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!