Aussie diving October 18 to 24

[bowlofpetunias]

:blinking: Hmm I get to be the first post this weekend?

Where is everyone? Tassie Rohan, Alcina? ......????

Here are my offerings for the weekend.
The moray with the brittlestar was actually fairly young
You have to look close to see the upside down pipefish with the Pleurobranchus under the rock in 37 & 38
The little seadragon is carrying so many eggs he can't swim anymore... I sure hope a snake eel doesn't find him before the eggs hatch! Looks like one egg has hatched already

 

[Sas]

Wow poor weedy! He looks like he took on too many eggs! I got out today for three dives so a bit tired now, did the Coogee wreck, Portsea Pier and Mornington pier. We got some great shots (well, mainly my buddy got them ) of some cuttlefish, weedies, some cool nudibranches as well as the Coogee wreck (which is just *stunning*). However my buddy burned me a DVD of our 400 pictures but he selected the wrong set of pictures so I don't have them yet :depressed::depressed: I was SO looking forward to checking them out too The boat ride to Coogee was tough as it was very rough. I have never been that seasick before (and I took meds for the first time for it!), was sick the whole way through the dive actually but was definitely worth it. Can't wait to get some pics off my buddy so I can post them

Uploading some movies to youtube now, so will post them later when they are fully uploaded. We got one of a weedy, a cuttlefish and one of a stingray. Also got one of my two buddies today imitating seals, that I am threatening to upload to Youtube One buddy was doing an impersonation and then tapped my other one on the shoulder (who had not been watching) and two seconds later he is doing the same thing. I am baffled how Paul got across to my other buddy "act like a seal as Sarah is filming" in handsigns.

 

[almitywife]

love the pics Shelia!!! the 1st one, the moray with the sea star,.... didnt know the buggers were red so nice to see!

no diving this weekend for us as i had work on saturday and a family thing on sunday. i told my mother that no good can come from a restaurant full of people jumping out yelling surprise and i was proven right.......poor old duck got the shakes and had to sit down

 

[stormysea]

I thought I might add to this thread, Hubby and I spent the weekend diving with Devocean on the gold coast. We were doing our open water certification. It was fantastic. For the pool dives and first two open water dives it was just hubby and I and the instructor Peter. It was fantastic to get so much one on one time. He was brillent. I was very very nervous but it was so amazing. Our first two open water dives where at the gold coast seaway. We saw a beautiful resident turtle, wobbygongs and lots of beautiful fish. On Sunday we were off to Cook Island marine park. On the way out we saw some whales. Again we saw some beautiful big turtles, lion fish and stone fish, sting rays, and some amazing marine creatures. It was really the best experience and without Peter and Shona being so gentle, positive and caring I don't thing it would have been the life experience that it was. We are both dying to get out and dive with them again and We are now certified divers!!

 

[bowlofpetunias]

It only gets better from here... welcome aboard Stormysea hope to see lots of posts about your diving. Your post triggered some great memories of overcoming the nerves to enjoy the amazing world under the waves. Thanks for that:blinking:

 

[Sas]

Congratulations on OW! Sounds so exciting for you Seeing a whale is one of the things I really hope to experience one day in particular~ I did my OW course fairly recently too (just at the start of the year) so always cool to see other new people like myself starting up diving (I was very nervous too). We have these threads each week so when you next get out diving, post some more stories

 

[Sas]

Got some pictures! Only from our first dive though, so a lot of the Coogee wreck. The yellow Zoanthids were beautiful. Haven't uploaded them yet so will just put them as attachments. My youtube upload failed though and have not bothered to redo it yet

Off to Portsea Hole this weekend - which was my first OW dive off a boat. I was too nervous to remember anything much from then so have always wanted to do the dive again. Also I remember thinking whilst watching people gear up to do a dive to the bottom (it bottoms out at 33m) "I will never be brave enough to dive that deep!"

 

[almitywife]

ohhh nice pics.. like the ones with the blue water and anchor!!

and welcome StormySeas.... looking forward to hearing about the diving in your part of the world

 

[bowlofpetunias]

:blinking:stunning sot I especially like the silouettes

 

[alcina]

I got in under the wire! Did two dives yesterday and they were fabulous. I know I shouldn't say it but I enjoyed my two local dives at least as much as any dive I did on my recent trip to Wakatobi!

I won't bother putting in the viz etc here as today the wind and swell are both up and yesterday was just perfect conditions LOL Water temp is reading about 24C on people's computers but I don't think it feels that warm. I did dive with just the polartec stuff, no neoprene, and the initial shock was a bit jolting but I did over 60 minutes each dive and wasn't cold...summer's coming!

Lots of cleaning action

Lots of nudis

Turtles were slow and lazy...this one kept ramming his head into this fan for a bit of a rest, then he'd pull back and throw a flipper in there, then pull back and rest his head again...it was the oddest behaviour.

And lots of fish getting up close and personal...this angelfish cut me off as I was trying to shoot a nudi