Aussie Diving - June week 3 (Fri 13th to Thur 19th June)

[Sas]

Are any Aussies still diving?? I thought I'd make another thread cos I have pictures to show off for once!

Anyway, I was on my deep course all weekend. We did our first deep dive to 32m on 'The Mall' along Lonsdale Wall. There was a 2m swell on the surface and I was quite sick getting in the water. Descent was bad and I had trouble equalising. I started thinking I was drowning and getting paranoid at about 30m but then I realised I was probably just a bit narced so calmed down straight away, and then felt pretty euphoric and relaxed! We did a narcosis test and I got them all right but my instructor said we were slow Buddy contact wasn't as good as usual so we agreed to keep a better eye on each other next time.

Next dive was just a pier dive to practice SMBs. We didn't do as many as the instructor would usually do as we were already practiced LOTS in the past and had no issues. We got some pictures on this dive. I don't know how to insert them into a post yet so they are below and 1. is of me swimming under Portsea Pier 2. Something that looks like a boxfish? 3. Pier fungus of some sort that I loved the look of and 4. another fish (sorry I am pretty lame at IDs but going to look them up after work). I saw a school of puffer fish, my favourite, and it was awesome as I'd only ever seen a few together at a time in the past.

Next day we did a dive at Devil's Drop Off on the Wall and I ended up at 41m. Did another narcosis test but this time the questions were 'what is the square root of 1 820 542 million?' 'if x=2, and y=5698, what is z?' and 'if a rhino eats 5kg of cabbage a day, how many tomatoes does the farmer need to plant so the rhino doesn't starve?'. It was pretty funny so I just wrote a smiley face and '42'. Descending was so easy today as I took Sudafed beforehand, first time I did not have to go at a snail's pace to stop my ears hurting! After that was Pope's Eye and it was awesome under there! Most fish I have seen on a dive but we forgot the camera. We had ponies then so practiced swapping onto them as well.

Anyway, I passed the course as my instructor said we were fine at depth. Sometimes he only gives people 30m certification or fails them so I was glad I didn't get too narced or anything We're going to go on the J4 asap now!

 

[alcina]

Awesome! I didn't get out this past week - too much to do in getting ready to go on holidays. I might be able to sneak out for a day later this week, hopefully!

Looks like great dives

 

[digital_steve]

Woohoo! Been waiting to post!
I finally got back in the water after a month with my favourite charter operator, Mick from Island Ocean Charters.
We were lucky enough to dive Isle de Phoques on the east coast of Tasmania; a little place to has a seal colony and some beautiful caves.
We did 2 dives over there with about 20m vis, 13 degree water and some fantastic company. Depths was about 20meters with the seals and about 16 meters in the caves.
I've attached some photos not taken by me, but i am the diver all in black in a couple!

When you're next down in Tassie, make sure you do Isle de Phoques

 

[Sas]

Cool nice pics! Especially the one with the light shining into the dark cave (last one) Sounds like a nice place to dive. I saw a seal yesterday at Pope's Eye but it didn't get in the water More like a rock with eyes, as the boat captain described it.

13C is not bad actually, I was thinking I couldn't dive in Tasmania as I don't have a dry suit... so I think I will reconsider it as a possible dive holiday this year. (Though I guess the next few months it will get a lot colder so maybe not then ). I've heard the diving is great there.

 

[mig_diver]

Course were still diving! It is getting a bit cold up here though for my liking, 20 degrees (yes I am soft, I know). Had four dives out on the HMAS Brisbane. Vis was at about 15 m both Saturday and Sunday and there was a bit of a surge that made things quite interesting. I didn't take my camera out because I was practising some reel work, still had an awesome weekend though

 

[digital_steve]

Saspotato - winter is the best time for diving down here. you get beautiful still days and massive vis. It doesn't get much colder than 13 degrees really, so you'd be fine!
The caves at isle de phoques were spectacular, the photos don't do them justice. The colours were so beautiful and the water was glassy.
Lots of fun to be had here in Tassie!!

 

[alien]

Saspotato
What type of deep course was it? Sounds rather strange with shallow dives as well as deep and going to 41m

 

[Sas]

Saspotato
What type of deep course was it? Sounds rather strange with shallow dives as well as deep and going to 41m

Was a deep to 39m course with SSI. I ended up at 40.7m on Lonsdale wall so slightly over but not into decompression. We weren't allowed to do any decompression diving. (I think that would have been a fail ).

We did the shallow dives as we had to show we could do repetitive dive plans. Also on the first day the instructor had us practice SMB launching under the pier. When we were ok with that, then we did the SMB at depth on the second day. How come it sounds strange? This seems to be what most Deep specialties offer.

edit: yea most of the courses I have found just then have two days with one deep dive on each day, followed by a shallower one so pretty much the same as what we did. First day we went to 30m, second day was 40m.

 

[mig_diver]

I went down to the Gold Coast Seaway yesterday and did some mapping for my DM. After hte mapping my buddy and I did some fun dives and just took our time exploring the Seaway and there is soooo much stuff to see down there. Plenty of surgeonfish, flutemouth, pipefish, crabs, an octopus, and a seahorse! Awesome day of diving