The plan was Dixon on day one, Johnny's Gorge on day two and whatever we felt like on day three. The sea had other opinions and the trip was better for it.
Day one: not Dixon
A two-metre swell from the northeast at six in the morning and an easy decision. We ran Jackson Bar twice instead, which nobody was thrilled about at the jetty and everybody was fine with by the second surface interval - four turtles on the first dive and a school of fusiliers thick enough to lose the reef behind.
Day two: Johnny's Gorge, and the grouper
Flat, twenty-eight metres of visibility, and the resident grouper under the third bommie in exactly the place he was in February. Twenty-four minutes of bottom time on air, which is the honest arithmetic of a 26 m dive and the reason we push nitrox on this site.
Day three: Dixon, finally
Slack water at seven, barracuda stacked over the top of the pinnacle, and a full circuit at 30 m with the soft coral wall on our left the whole way round. Two eagle rays on the ascent that nobody photographed because everybody was watching.
What the group said afterwards
Two of the six named the cancelled day as their favourite diving of the trip. That is not a lesson about Jackson Bar - it is a lesson about the honest call at the jetty being worth more than the itinerary.