Aussie diving, 8th Oct to 14th Oct

[almitywife]

ummmmm

i was planning on diving today but got to the dive site and noticed my regs werent packed my own fault for letting hubby pack my gear without checking

oh well... who cares if they found the upside down fish or the red indian fish or a very unusual nudibranch. who cares if Bare Island had the best surface conditions ive seen in a long time

oh well, packed properly for tomorrow now although hubby did dive today so he says he will have pics (and last weeks pics) by tomorrow

bare island today... look how calm it looked

and Petunia & Thanks4Fish getting in with some buddies

Shelia, did you inheriate 2 new buddies today? looks like they decended with you guys (bright yellow masks and snorkels)

oh, and as i had nothing esle to do i sat in the car with my trusty binoculars and watched. saw a diver i cant stand have a domestic with his GF on the surface, she was yelling at him about her guage/computer "i cant trust it!" and he nagged her to keep diving and then later on i saw him leave the water a few mins before she surfaced

bare island had everythign from 3 rebreather divers to a solo GUE diver today

 

[thanksforallthefish]

well seeing as pictures seem to be the thing this week and I dont take a camera .. .



Dont let AW know we saw dolphins, turtles and whalesharks also

 

[bowlofpetunias]

:shocked2: OMG I thought you liked ALL divers!:shocked2:

:blinking:Yes the couple were asking us where to dive so we explained the site a bit and told them they could tag along and head back when they were ready as a buddy pair but we would continue in our own buddy pairs. They weren't bad in the water and tagged along until a bit past seahorse rock. I noticed they geared up and did a second dive.:blinking:

We didn't find the red indian fish but found a pair of morays. The upside down pipefish is still too small for fish to see..... maybe he needs a prescription mask poor dear! I think the smallish weedy with a tail full of eggs is the one we found as a baby Dec 2006. Same area.... looked familiar... getting bad when you recognise the wildlife hmm? Garden rock seems to have a resident boxfish and tropical...
HEAPS of Pleurobranchus eggs.... or is it a biscuit star

 

[bowlofpetunias]

:uwphotographer:

here is the Pleurobranchus Hills I believe

 

[bowlofpetunias]

:blinking:I think these were a couple!

 

[Sas]

I love the moray pictures! The Hill's Pleurobranch, I see them all over the sand in Blairegowie, but not anywhere else. So cool you have some too! There are yellow, red or brown ones down here, some are the size of dinner plates :shocked2:

Today I had Rescue class and it went very well The lifts were quite hard, and my buddy resprained his ankle (he sprained it a week or so ago) trying to lift me out of the water. In between skills me, Paul and another guy from the class snorkelled around the dive site so I didn't really get out of the water for about 4 hours straight, was a lot of fun Most people got cold early on so my instructor got me and Paul to do all the retrieval of the gear too, so we did get an ok dive in, just popping up now and again to give people's gear back We saw a starfish eating a jellyfish, a school of about 50 mullet swim past, lots of jellyfish floating around and heaps of toadfish. No pics unfortunately though! And the ones from the other night turned out a bit dodgy due to the terrible viz. Anyway, tomorrow I have DANO2 course so another early start *cries*

I am getting excited to dive Bare Island now, so many cool creatures, the weedies I love in particular too.

 

[almitywife]

love the moray shot - outstanding!!!!

we're off diving now and i have my regs so fingers cross i'll see that whaleshark today Petunia!


Sas - just remember to volunteer for as much free o2 that you can get

 

[bowlofpetunias]

Thanks Almity! Considering the quality of shots you are used to looking at that is high praise indeed!

Sas we don't see the Peuobranchus out very often... I got some shots of one a few years ago while it was in the act of laying its eggs..... at Bare Island... Neville Coleman said he was quite surprised as he hadn't seen them at Bare Island... This one looked black underwater but the last one was more yellow and brown.



This moray... one of the pair was quite friendly.... he kept coming out to touch the camera rather gently with his mouth... still not willing to test him on fingers!


I actually felt sorry for the little Weedy... he seemed to be struggling with the load of eggs for his size.....:doh2erhaps he "bit off more than he could chew" this time. Oh well they looked fairly close to hatching.


This blotched hawkfish was pretty fed up with having his picture taken by the time I got my turn! Hi lives in this sponge.


The dwarf lionfish usually has a friend close by. I like the way the spots on the tail blend with the spots on the sponge

Sorry guys experimenting with attachments here.... hmm so you have to click on them to see the larger version.... must be doing it different from Almitywife

 

[almitywife]

im homeeeeeeee

for pics i usually load them onto my photobucket account and then use the IMG link here so they dont sit in the post as an attachment but appear with a nice size (usualy 6 x 4" for me)

im sure there is a techie way of explaining it but i cant

today we dived oak park... big disappointment. conditions looked good but once you got under it was a snotty 5mtrs to and there was a constant chill even in a 5mm semi dry AND no blue devil fish

only thing i found was a nudi and a sweet lips

hubby was excited about the sweet lips for some reason but didnt get a pic.... i told him he has 2 days to give me this & last weekends pics for show and tell

 

[almitywife]

OMG Shelia!!!

im sitting here watching your dvd of your lady elliot pics & video

:wave:

OUTSTANDING!!!! fantastic how you put it all together and LOVE the music choices.... who is the guy singing the scuba songs?? remind me to give you a copy of ScubaTunes if you dont already have one

you need to do a workshop becasue i have no idea how to put music to my stuff!!!

hubby has dvd envy so he may be asking you questions

brings back alot of GREAT memories :bounce2:

*sigh* we really have to go back next year!!