Giant Cuttlefish are weird AF, but also pretty awesome.
Every year Giant Cuttlefish start hanging out near Whyalla for a bit of hanky panky, and because cuttlefish don’t use Tinder, it’s literally the place to be. It’s the biggest gathering of these crazy looking creatures anywhere on Earth, and it sounds a bit creepy that you can go check them out when they’re trying to get their arms on a spunky little cuttlefish mate, but meh, whatevs. And look, we know what you’re thinking, “Are cuttlefish really that cool?” and heck yes they are. They’re easily as cool as octopuseseses even if they don’t have the same profile and no one’s ever made a Netflix doco about how they have one as a teacher.
And we’ve got everything you need to know, and as usual, some stuff you probably don’t.
The cuttlefish get hot when it’s cold.
They usually start arriving in around May, ready for a massive mating frenzy, and by the end of August they’ve buggered off. Or died. (They only live for a few years so there’s a good chance the ones we saw last year in these pictures are already feeding someone’s budgie somewhere.) June/July is prime boomchickawawa time so that’s when you want to go.
Where do I go, what do I wear? am i going to die?
OK, pay attention, this is important. June/July is Winter and the water is cold as balls. Which is a weird saying when you think about it, because you definitely won’t be able to find yours for a good few hours after. If you don’t already have some, that’s OK, use your imagination. We’ve seen people go in the water in their bathers and seriously, those people are probably dead now. Don’t do it. You’ll want a 5mm or 7mm wetsuit or if they come in 25mm wear one of those. Plus all the bits and pieces. Boots, gloves, hood, the lot.
If you don’t have your own gear, you can hire everything you need at Whyalla Diving Services. (It can get pretty busy in prime time, so make sure you book ahead – don’t just turn up and hope for the best otherwise say goodbye to your balls.) Last time we checked, a full snorkel set cost about $120 and you get the gear for two days which is super useful because we recommend allowing for at least two swims – if, for example, you drive up from Adelaide in the morning, (about a 4.5hr drive, a little longer if you stop at Port Wakefield for a doughnut or Port Augusta for a quick looksy and a quandong smoothie at the Arid Lands Botanic Gardens), you can pick your gear up after lunch and head out for your first swim in the afternoon. Go back to your accomodation, defrost, get a pizza, then go out again the next morning. This gives you two windows in case the weather is a bit shit for one of them. We’ve also found sometimes the afternoon can be a bit awesome, and the morning can be a lot awesome, or vice versa, so worth going twice. Or what the heck, go more than twice. But going at least twice is a good idea.
USEFUL INFO.
Once you’re at Stony Point, there’s a chain you can hold onto while you enter the water which is quite a good idea because the rocks are slippery AF. It’s also not easy walking in fins. It’s basically like ice skating in fins. If that was a thing.
In recent years they’ve built some facilities there with toilets and an area to get changed so that’s pretty nifty.
You don’t have to go in right there, the cuttlefish are all along that section of coast, so feel free to wander down a bit, then slip over and crack your head open on your way in somewhere else. (You can go to the right, to the left is restricted. But there’s a big sign that says that so you’ll work it out.)
The cuttlefish come in quite close so you probably only need to be in a few metres of water to see them which is good because it makes it all pretty easy and greatly reduces the chances of you being eaten by a shark.
Unlike sharks, cuttlefish aren’t dangerous. Be nice to them and leave them alone, and they’ll be pretty chill and you’ll be able to get close enough to see how super cool they are. Hopefully not close enough for one of them to try and mate with you and if they do, make sure your mouth is closed because, well, see useless info below.
If you can’t be arsed doing it on your own, heaps of places do tours there now. Ask the Whyalla Dive Shop or try Pure SA, Experiencing Marine Sanctuaries or use the Google machine. We usually just rock up and do our own thing so you can 100% do it without going on a tour.
And if you don’t want to get cold and wet, check out Cutty’s Glass Bottom Boat Tours or even the Spencer Gulf Adventures glass bottom kayak tours.
If you need more info try doing that old fashioned thing and using an actual telephone to make an actual telephone call to the Whyalla Visitor Centre on 1800 088 589.
USELESS INFO.
The official fancy pants term for Giant Cuttlefish is ‘Sepia Apama’. And they’re not actually fish, they’re cephalopods.
They have blue blood, three hearts, eight arms, two feeding tentacles and they mate by blowing their cuttlefish jizz into the female’s mouth. We have nothing more than a juvenile snigger to add to that.
They are called ‘Giant Cuttlefish’ because they can be pretty bloody giant… up to 50cm long and up to 10kg!
They can change colour, shape and texture which is pretty rad. Not they know they change colour because they’re colour blind.
