Aussie Diving, 1st Oct to 7th Oct

[almitywife]

well im finally in the water so very happy to kick this weeks thread off!

today was a muck dive at clifton gardens... didnt find the angler fish although everyone has a 'secret" spot where they find them but ive never been that lucky!

but did find quite a few baby morays, lots of fish and a couple of pipefish and occys

tomorrow we are all packed for bare island :bounce2:

 

[Sas]

Yay! I haven't found any anglerfish yet, it is one of the last things on my 'to find' list.

I had my first day of Rescue class 9-5 so tired from all the listening Just classroom work, and a test, I got 24/25 yay! Has been really interesting and will be very helpful for my diving. Tomorrow we are going to the pool to practice rescuing each other. So yea, first weekend since April I haven't dived properly (pool does not count ) :depressed: Me and my buddy are going out for some night diving midweek to make up for it

 

[almitywife]

rescue course can be pretty tiring but its a GOOD course.

heheeh. my fav story from my rescue is having to drag my buddy (hubby) out of the water... i thought i would grab a handful of wetsuit under each arm and pull as hard as a could, but i forgot men have underarm hair

poor man, rolling around on the sand yelling and there i am with hands on hips saying "oh thats a bit over dramatic dont you think!"



enjoy your class!

 

[bowlofpetunias]

Great to be back in the water hmm?

:shocked2: We dived yesterday...:shocked2: in the rain!:shocked2: We normally don't dive in the rain.... you get wet! Hate trying to get wetsuit on in the rain.... Hate getting wetsuit off in the rain..... (actually hate wetsuit but water temps are low enough we have to give up the sharkskins for a while) Hate not being able to dry off..... but whinging aside it was worth it! Think we might do it again tomorrow...

I couldn't find the upsidedown pipefish adults but found one of their kids in the usual spot. I also found a baby moray.... probably the one we saw a few months ago.... then it was smaller than a pencil.... now it is still smaller than my finger. It was near the spot the we found the tiny one was so it is probably the same one growing up.

Lots of PJ sightings... I think there were only 3 individuals the baby who wasn't sure what to think of the cameras... not worried enough to leave. The same one kept circling and ran into me...

PJ "I'm a shark ... the diver will move"
Me "This should be a good shot of the box fish... the shark will turn":uwphotographer:
PJ "Humph... stupid diver didn't move"
Me "Humph .... stupid shark ruined my shot"

 

[almitywife]

heheheheheh, i think i saw that PJ today because he came pretty close to bumping into me too!

today was bare island

we arrived and it was blowing a HUGE gale outside and it was dark and overcast. so i sat in the car for about 45mins and when i finally decided to get out of the car..... it started bucketing down! so we were gearing up in the rain and the wind but when we finally got in the water i wasnt too disappointed.. maybe because i had little expectation.

5mtr vis, warmish and saw a couple of pjs, lots of nudies, occys, squid and a few frogfish and a big moray that came all the way out of his hole

i tried to find Petunias baby upside fish but hubby decided to swim over the outcrop BOTH times i was looking and the trail of fin destruction that follows him gave me a cloud of sand raining down while trying to look

another group of divers tell me they found a blue devil fish (lucky buggers)!

 

[Sas]

I am jealous of you guys getting to see all those critters. I got to see a lot of dirt and bandaids in the pool today. *gross*

But Rescue was very fun. We started off doing some skills (not on scuba) - 200m swim, then treading water for 5mins holding weights, duck diving to retrieve weights, 25m underwater swim, different types of tows and then rescuing a panicking snorkler. Then we practiced rescuing each other from the bottom of the pool, I was TERRIBLE the first time, I forgot to take off weight, and then my mask, and my buddy said I nearly drowned him a few times as I wasn't holding his head up, oops. Was very overweighted actually so it was a bit hard, I only had 2 pounds less on me than in salt water, I forgot to bring different weights given we were in the pool. After that terrible first attempt though it was pretty straight forward so I think I will be fine next week

I missed doing a proper dive though :depressed: I sat under the water just swimming around with my gear watching other scuba classes to try get a dive in

Now Nitrox on Tuesday as well! Busy week for classes

 

[thanksforallthefish]

Well I did BI - eastern side today ... viz was about7mtrs and temp 17° .... as per ususal there wasnt a great deal of life on that side, but the sponges are quite good ... no weedies ... havent seen a weedy in the last 3 dives.

saw a cute little cuttle that liked having a movie made about it ... but didn't like it when the flash fired and a baby pj.

our angler fish has gone ... i still look for him every time we are there but he hasnt been seen for ages. :depressed:

well it was well worth doing and enjoyed it a lot

 

[Sas]

Got a night dive in last night at a place called Half Moon Bay in Black Rock. It is where they sunk the Cerberus, but unfortunately there is a 25m exclusion zone so you cannot dive it. They have 24hr survellience to make sure no one goes near! Too bad the viz was 1m, and not 25m... and it was night

Here is a picture I found on the net:

Four of us went down there, so me and Paul and two people I have met through my dive club. Both photographers so hopefully I will get some pictures later. It was quite a difficult dive, due to the bad viz (our torches didn't show very much ), and a bit of surge, and also a strap on my BC broke (grrr less than 6 months old!). But still we got to see an octopus, some weird looking jellyfish and a prawn! That might not sound exciting but I have not seen a prawn (well a live one) before

 

[almitywife]

nice pic! so what is there an exclusion zone? the thing is just sitting there for you to dive it

anyways, whos watching it 24/7??

 

[Sas]

nice pic! so what is there an exclusion zone? the thing is just sitting there for you to dive it

anyways, whos watching it 24/7??

I think it is dangerous these days as it is starting to collapse. There is a campaign to save it at the moment. My buddy told me (and I just confirmed it online) that there is a $10,000 fine if you are caught inside the exclusion zone :shocked2: so I didn't want to test their survellience Oh and sorry it is HMVS, not HMAS, cos I was using the latter to google info but wasn't finding heaps!

I saw on a webpage that you can apply for a permit from Heritage Victoria so I might look into that... would be awesome to check out!