Port Phillip Bay : Travel Victoria

Photos of the Bay almost always show it to be blue, but that's a trick of the light on a summer's afternoon, for the Bay is really a deep grey.

There are 254 shades of grey and the slow moving waters shift from a pale ash colour into a saturated cyan swirl then a warm yellowish tinge with flashes of silver. Each one moves, swirls and rolls over to the next. Just beautiful!

I challenge you not to be calmed by sitting and watching the play of light over the slow moving waters.

Port Phillip is a young bay by geological standards. It was formed only about 10,000 years ago at the end of the last Ice Age, when the sea-level rose to drown what was then the Valley of the Yarra.

So essentially, the whole Bay is a flood plain, now submerged, with the river channel running through to the ocean in Bass Strait.

In Melbourne, the capital city of Victoria and my home town, Port Phillip is familiarly known as 'the Bay'. Its piers, jetties, islands and marine reserves are used all year round, the city is built along its gentle curves for best advantage.

The bay is huge, roughly the shape of a distorted diamond, seven kilometres from the Rip to the city of Melbourne, and eighty kilometres across from east to west.

I love the bay. It's certainly no Sydney Harbour, but there's a serene beauty in its grey vastness.

My childhood memories are full of going out on the bay with my father.

He taught me to row the dinghy, and my job was to secure it when we reached the boat offshore. I learned to fish here, with a line made from a coca cola bottle and October was the busiest month - when the schnapper ran in immense shoals though the bay.

In Springtime the schnapper still run in the bay. As do flathead, whiting, bream, gummy sharks, squid and garfish -- but the mussels I used to scrape from the jetties have all gone.

St Kilda is on the southern side of Melbourne, a short tram ride from the CBD.

The suburb takes its name from a ship called The Lady of St Kilda, which visited Melbourne in July 1841, five years after the founding of Melbourne. The ship itself was named for the island of St Kilda in the Outer Hebrides.

The Aboriginal people of the Kulin lived here until the Europeans, with their fashionable great stone mansions and palatial hotels, drove them out. You can still see the shellfish middens along the foreshore and turn up axes which were most likely sharpened on the sandstone cliffs behind the main beach.

Corroborees were held at an historic tree which still stands at St Kilda Junction

Neil Blake, Baykeeper and Penguin Researcher, tends one of his charges

St Kilda is home to a colony of Little Penguins, about 1200 of the birds taking up residence on the Breakwater. A remarkable feat, given the close proximity (5 kilometres) to the urban centre of Melbourne.

Little penguins spend most of their time in the waters of the bay feeding on pilchards, anchovies and other small fish. At night they return quickly to the safety and protection of their burrows within the breakwater.

:Baykeeper Neil Blake, with a group of volunteers, has been researching this colony since 1986.

When Lt. John Murray first sailed through the notorious Rip into Port Phillip on 14 February 1802, he noted the turbulent seas and treacherous rocks and declared it to be a a formidable obstacle.

The bay itself is relatively safe, with few navigational obstacles -- it's the entrance that causes trouble.

The Rip is flanked by reefs to the west and to the east, with less than one kilometre of water between them. There's also a deep trough, one hundred metres deep, across the entrance, which creates turmoil as the tide surges into the bay, and more turmoil as the tide retreats. The end result is a short stretch of sea that is one of the most dangerous in the world.

There are almost 200 sunken ships in the waters of Port Phillip Bay.


The Steamer, Kakariki, going down in 1937

In 1904 the 6901 ton steamship Australia struck Corsair Rock and was totally wrecked off Point Nepean on the east of the Rip.

And the 3316 steamship Time was wrecked on the same rock in 1949.

The 415 ton three-masted barque Eliza Ramsden struck Corsair Rock in 1875 but managed to enter the bay before sinking.

To the west, on the other side of the entrance, a dozen ships of significant size were wrecked on the Lonsdale reef including the 2033 ton barque George Roper, magnificent 2237 ton barque Holyhead, and the 1071 ton barque Gange.

But there are many ships lost without trace around the Rip. The sea still has many secrets.

I hope you will come and visit Melbourne and see this lovely bay.

Visitors are beguiled by Sydney with its deep water harbour and iconic landmarks but I prefer the quietness of Port Phillip, the boundless horizon it offers me, the deep rolling waves and the daily sight of great ships being guided safely to port by colourful bustling little tugs.

It's a vista for reflection. And for counting your blessings.

Victoria Police Services : Port Phillip Baykeeper : Beach Wallpaper : Susanna Duffy