Sas
Contributor
I got out for a night dive tonight and it was AWESOME. Primarily as my buddy survived an attempted eating by a 2m stingray... but I'll get to that later.
Anyway, me, + two buddies got to Mornington about 8pm. Michael + I were mainly there to practice some skills for cavern, which I start in two weeks . We did gear removal midwater, buddy breathing, trying to remove and replace masks with one hand which is doable but I found it mutually exclusive with keeping my hood on, and also laying line and then reeling it in without our masks on. The last skill I thought would be hard but it is actually really easy. If you just hold onto the line, buoyancy is easy and it is quite comforting as you know where you are heading. After a few minutes I could see quite decently actually, well not good compared to with a mask on but I could make out shapes and so on.
Whilst I was laying line (I went first) a giant stingray made an appearance so that was quite exciting. Then when Michael was finishing up winding in his line, it showed up again and must have been gnawing on his arm or something like that as Michael said later he wondered how I was squeezing his arm on that side (I was on the opposite side of him). At this point he had no mask on and had no idea what was going on other than I grabbed him and tried to indicate to stay still. In hindsight the whole thing was very funny. After we finished we found it yet again and it swum right over me. I should have used that chance to remove a long line hanging out of its mouth but I figured it might not take kindly to this. We swum around for a bit more sharing air as practice + saw an octopus in a bottle and one in a tube. There was also an eel (not so common here) and the usual fish. We did 72mins so shorter than normal and the temp was 19C
Anyway, one of the best dives I've done in a while. The skills were fun and not too hard and the stingray was really fun.
Anyway, me, + two buddies got to Mornington about 8pm. Michael + I were mainly there to practice some skills for cavern, which I start in two weeks . We did gear removal midwater, buddy breathing, trying to remove and replace masks with one hand which is doable but I found it mutually exclusive with keeping my hood on, and also laying line and then reeling it in without our masks on. The last skill I thought would be hard but it is actually really easy. If you just hold onto the line, buoyancy is easy and it is quite comforting as you know where you are heading. After a few minutes I could see quite decently actually, well not good compared to with a mask on but I could make out shapes and so on.
Whilst I was laying line (I went first) a giant stingray made an appearance so that was quite exciting. Then when Michael was finishing up winding in his line, it showed up again and must have been gnawing on his arm or something like that as Michael said later he wondered how I was squeezing his arm on that side (I was on the opposite side of him). At this point he had no mask on and had no idea what was going on other than I grabbed him and tried to indicate to stay still. In hindsight the whole thing was very funny. After we finished we found it yet again and it swum right over me. I should have used that chance to remove a long line hanging out of its mouth but I figured it might not take kindly to this. We swum around for a bit more sharing air as practice + saw an octopus in a bottle and one in a tube. There was also an eel (not so common here) and the usual fish. We did 72mins so shorter than normal and the temp was 19C
Anyway, one of the best dives I've done in a while. The skills were fun and not too hard and the stingray was really fun.