Mettams Pool, Shore Dive Perth WA, Howies Scuba

DIVES SITES

Scuba Diving Perth WA

Shore Diving

Mettams Pool

West Coast Drive

Shore Dive: Reef Dive.
Max Depth: 7 meters.
Dive Conditions: All dives north of the river (West Coast Drive) will be considerably effected with swells greater than 1 meter, swell periods greater than 12 seconds, and anything but a low easterly wind (a gentle southerly may be dive-able early mornings but really needs to be close to non-existent).
Dive Flag at site: No

Directions

West Coast Drive is where this and several other shore based reef dives are. Come off the Mitchell Freeway at Karrinyup Rd and head west to the coast, you can't miss West Coast Drive otherwise you will be in the ocean, which is fine as long as you have already got your SCUBA gear on. Mettams Pool is about 15 - 20 minutes from Perth CBD.
Once you are on West Coast Drive pull in on the left just after you see Lynn St for the main entrance to Mettams Pool, there is ample parking on the street and there is also toilet facilities and a disabled ramp down to the beach.

Getting Ready & Getting In

Option 1: You will have to get your kit together on the roadside, be careful as this is a shared walkway for cyclists and pedestrians. You can if you like grab your gear and get ready on the lookout area over Mettams Pool so you're not in the way. Once you're ready and you have done all your final checks (BWRAF), make your way down the steps to the beach, if there is surf breaking then you shouldn't be here, but if you are then just head to the right of the surf as this is the sandy area at the side of the reef.

Option 2: You can decide to go across the reef and if so you need to park further on down the hill or walk back, the choice is yours. About 50 meters Prior to reaching Lynn St you need to pull in on the left and get your gear ready on the walkway. When you are ready to enter the water just follow the sloped path halfway down and as you turn to your left (Southerly direction) there is a a broken path. You may not see it straight away but walk straight and there is a little gravel/broken concrete path that takes you down to the beach. Enter over the shallow reef, you maybe able to walk this or snorkel over it depending on conditions.

Entry Map

Picture below shows in red arrows the main entrance points to Mettams Pool, however the right arrow is the main entrance people generally use.
In the middle of this is a little short cut across the reef. Its not perfect and was very shallow the day we tried it, but it dropped us in the middle, with minimal fuss.
Once you are in just closely follow the reef in either direction and you shouldn't go too wrong.

Dive Review:
(Dives 1 - 3)

First days dive at "Mettams Pool" was a double dive in Spring 2011 with my faithful dive buddy Stevie G, and I have to say I wasn't overly impressed, with the site, not Stevie.
I have heard others rave on about how good this site is, so naturally I had to give it a go. I had also read that ideally you really need a maximum of a 1 meter swell to get the best out of this site. The day I dived here we had a 1.4 meter swell, low easterly winds and the waters looked almost still, there was a gentle surf but nothing too impressive, and certainly nothing that concerned us, so we decided to give it a go......... mistake number 1.
I know the advice was a 1 meter swell but generally you would take this kind of information with a pinch of salt, yeah' it may not be perfect but a 1.4 meter swell shouldn't ruin the dive, it's not like it's 3 meters or something. Well I have to say, even this slight swell made this shallow site surgey and made the sand whip up and bleach everything out.
Well we tried our best to explore this site and my initial thoughts are there isn't too much going on, vis was down to a minimum and I think with hindsight we had swam out too far from the beach and missed some of the holes and other little treats that where closer to the shore.
Day 1, Dive 2: Because the first dive was so poor, we decided to stay within the Pools at Mettams that are naturally formed between the shore and ocean by the reef, we thought we would explore this side and look for little passage ways through the reef, or little swim in & outs that are maybe sheltered from the this "HUGE" 1.4 meter swell we had experienced....... Mistake number 2.
I don't actually know if you can call this a dive, 1.5 meters of water at its deepest, I may be in the Guinness Book of Records for doing the most consecutive dives in an hour, as my computer thought it was on a bouncy castle....... 1.5m..... H2O....... 1.5m..... H2O....... 1.5m..... H2O....... 1.5m..... H2O....... 1.5m..... H2O........... I think the computer may have suffered sea sickness we were up and down so much. So quick advice don't bother going to the inside of Mettams.
Completed "mistake 3"...... sorry dive 3 at Mettams Pool the following day, I had checked out the weather for the week a few days before, which on paper looked fine and, had told one of my other buddy's (Walt) that we would dive Mettams on this day because at that point neither of us had dived here. With hindsight, knowing the swell would 1.2 meters I warned him of the potential for even the slightest swell to ruin this site but, we decided to give it ago none the less.
The vis had cleared up to about 4 meters but the surge was still a pain in the rear, trying to push you into anything it could. The moment you wanted to stop to take a look at anything (not that there was much) you had to hold on tight otherwise you would just be pushed away. We managed to find a couple of little holes and a couple of pretty little swim thru's but certainly nothing at this point to get too excited about. I am starting to be convinced that, (A) people are lying how good this dive site is (B) they really have dived at some poor dive sites previously or (C) they know where the secret entrance is to "Narnia" and they are keeping this all to themselves, like some secret societies. Anyway...... regardless of all that I am still not convinced about the quality of this site.
In all honesty and just to repeat myself I am unimpressed by this site, to dive here it would need to be an absolutely flat calm day (which we have currently only had one this year 2011) and, the marine life would need to get ramped up a bit. Maybe on a calm day or even possibly a night dive the marine life may come out to play, but I didn't see much that makes me want to run back here. If I had a perfect day I would be sorely tempted to return to "Boy in a Boat Reef" before wasting such a great day, but I know what I am like, and as I have not had a great dive here yet I am sure I will return on a gloriously calm day and seek out as many nooks and crannies as I can.

The Vis

As you can see with only a small amount of swell, the water can be bleached out easily.

I have dived other reefs along this area and when calm the vis can be exceptional.

Life On & Around the Reef

There was lot's of life growing on the reef at Mettams Pool.

Some clearly obvious, some you have to look for under ledges and other hiding in the nooks and crannies.

Sea Fans regardless of size are quite stunning with its varying colour's from yellow, pink, orange, white and red. These like the high wave action found under ledges and can be quite abundent.

During the three dives at Mettams, I have seen a considerable amount of varying types of Sea Stars.

From large individuals to large aggregations of smaller Stars.

I did not realise how fast Rays can move until this moment. I think I startled this first Ray, at that point it moved fast, frighteningly fast.
I nearly jumped out of my skin..... so funny.

Seeing the Western Blue Devil was a definite highlight of the second days dive.

Unfortunately due to the surge it was difficult to get a decent photograph.

I have to be honest over these two days we didn't see many fish. Compared to MAAC or BBR that was a bit of a disappointment, maybe it was the less than perfect conditions.

Like I said earlier, when at Mettams make sure you look in all the nooks and crannies, and I am sure you will see something in pretty much all of the spaces, even if its not too impressive.

What is this ?????

Does anybody know what this thing is. It was at Mettams that I saw this for the first time, but since then I have seen them at Point Peron.
They are like part filled water balloons they sway in the current, I don't know if they are a worm or something along those lines.
Please if you know what these are let me know.
I have hazard a guess that they are Sipunculans ??

Conclusion

eeerrrrmmmm..... I know north of the river dive sites are notoriously difficult to dive with a 1 meter swell or greater, which is a real shame because they do offer something different from the more reliable south of the river dives. Knowing this makes me feel I should be more generous to these dives, but I can't.
The other reality is I have only dived here 3 times over two days, so it is very difficult to give a complete review of the dive site and the conditions you can dive here.
But my first argument would be that, there is not enough perfectly calm days over the year to regularly dive this site, even in low to medium conditions would seem to make this a difficult site to get any benefit from.
Second argument would be, that right at this moment there are just better dive sites out there both north and south of the river.
I will remain open about this site, and would never dismiss any site without further dives to give a balanced view however, unless something wonderful or out of the blue happens I really cannot see where this dive site would pick up more points.
All said and done, "you" have to dive it and, "you" have to make up your own mind, some of my buddy's swear by it.........

Video Compilation

WOooooAAAAH...... WAIT A MINUTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dive Number 4

Here we go again: Finally got back to Mettams Pool after nearly 2 years and I have to say I am happy to report it was a far cleaner and calmer day than the last couple of days diving I did there. The swell was 0.9 - 1.0 meter, swell period 10 seconds, wind was easterly at around 15 knots, tide was on its way out and this made for a far better dive.
The waves were a little high as they rose over the reef and began to break, however you only had to manage a difficult set every couple of minutes so nothing too harsh. And once you had descended only a couple of meters the effect was nominal.
The odd thing is we saw more marine life on the poor days than we did on this dive. The best moment though was when we became surrounded by approx. 1000 juvenile Buffalo Bream that where congregating around around a very decent sized arch at about 7 meters.

Sooooooooo has my conclusion changed of this dive site now that I have had the good fortune to dive it on a clean day........ No............ not really......
I am happy to bump it up another notch or two, I am happy to say it was a lot nicer to dive and we found some nice little spots, I may even go as far as to say I would like to come back here before going back to MAAC, but that's about it.
The simple truth about all the reefs along here (BBR excluded) is that none of them are as good as Point Peron. Yes they beat Point Peron for Marine Life but never would they beat it for reef, Point Peron has loads of holes, overhangs, arches and a some wonderful caves that you can easily get into. So when the weather looks 99% perfect on paper the chances are that 1% is going to be annoying enough to effect the dive here but not at Point Peron.
I think these sites are seen as so good, purely because they are rarity to dive and, even rarer to dive them with lovely conditions. They are mysterious, they are elusive and that's why they are chased, when you get in to them they seem so fresh and different and new and lovely and blah blah blah. If you could only dive Point Peron twice a year it would be heaving with divers on those days.
Anyway I am not knocking this site or any of the others along here, (Trigg is one of my favourite dive sites) I am just making a point, I love new, and exciting and different and all the blah blah blah's. I know I will come back here but it may take another two years, we will see.

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