Aussie Diving September

[bowlofpetunias]

Hey,

I have been living in Sydney for a short while now and I have yet to dive Bare Island, and the Midnight Wreck sounds pretty awesome. SO is the protocol with these things self invite, and hope no one disagrees.......... or do i have to ask nicely :blinking: ....... or is is a private friends club, and no amount of asking will work

I think I need to get out and meet some more people in this crazy and somewhat unfriendly city, maybe this is a chance

:blinking:my answers would be No, Yes, Yes:blinking:

Probably not a good idea to just turn up, things may change:rofl4:

Yes it is always nice to ask unless there is an open invitation here we are just planning a Bare Island SB get together dive

Yes some of us dive regularly in group that is a "closed group" for a number of reasons. don't want to come across as unfriendly here but our regular group is rather large already. We dive with others sometimes and may be able to help with intros

Frog Dive is having a treasure hunt a week from Sunday at Balmoral. We may be there but there will be heaps of people and prizes. Entry $30 for non Frogdive members. You may want to consider joining in there? Not positive if we will go yet tho. :blinking:

 

[bowlofpetunias]

Sas it sounds pretty crazy to me. A card required for a night dive? drift dive? etc.... you gotta be kidding! I agree penetration and deep dive certs make sense but really! There is drift not far from here I wouldn't take an inexperienced diver on. It seems like either shops want to make money on more courses, are afraid of litigation or give no credit what so ever for divers having brains

 

[Kern]

Hey,

I have been living in Sydney for a short while now and I have yet to dive Bare Island, and the Midnight Wreck sounds pretty awesome. SO is the protocol with these things self invite, and hope no one disagrees.......... or do i have to ask nicely :blinking: ....... or is is a private friends club, and no amount of asking will work

I think I need to get out and meet some more people in this crazy and somewhat unfriendly city, maybe this is a chance

gijo, Bare Is. is open to anyone to go & dive, just get your gear together, go down & dive. If you need a little more info about that site & others have a look at Michael McFadyen's scuba diving site, http://www.michaelmcfadyenscuba.info/viewpage.php?page_id=1

If you want to do the night dive on the Currajong, go here, http://www.scubaroos.com/calendar.htm & book a dive.

Not every circle is closed, just go & dive, met people, have fun.

 

[thanksforallthefish]

Not every circle is closed, just go & dive, met people, have fun.

Just being pedantic, but every circle is closed otherwise it is an arc

 

[bowlofpetunias]

gijo, Bare Is. is open to anyone to go & dive, just get your gear together, go down & dive. If you need a little more info about that site & others have a look at Michael McFadyen's scuba diving site, Michael McFadyen's Scuba Diving Web Site

If you want to do the night dive on the Currajong, go here, http://www.scubaroos.com/calendar.htm & book a dive.

Not every circle is closed, just go & dive, met people, have fun.

:shocked2: perhaps we are misunderstanding our posts here:blinking:
As a fairly new diver (Less than 50 dives listed) I was assuming gijo would want to be sure of having a dive buddy to count on. Bare Island is an open dive site but with dive classes (which are closed) buddy pairs and groups that have worked out dive plans, diving styles and goals in advance they tend to be "closed groups". I personally would not like to get everything organized and turn up and hope I get there at a time when someone else does who is looking for a buddy too. I like to know in advance who I am trusting the next 90 minutes of my life to.:cool2:

This dive we are arranging with Sas started with someone asking and no one has been refused. It is still being organized so asking means you will be kept in the loop for changes. Conditions could mean we relocate the dive at the last minute and if that does happen we need to know who is coming so we can either wait if they are late or phone with the update. I do think asking is always polite anyway.

Myself and T4fish have been diving with the same group for years. A group of dive buddies/friends 8 - 10 with similar air consumption, virtually everyone with cameras, similar dive styles is already quite large to manage. We all dive with others as well but we have had people invite themselves to dive with us who did not know the group dive ettiquette or follow proper buddy procedures and basicly ruined the dive for everyone.

I am not implying in any way that :blinking:gijo would create any of the problems others have. I am explaining why a group as a whole does form and does make a decision to be a closed group. We are not unfriendly but we are all very busy very experienced divers who try desperately to squeeze a dive in every week with our friends if we can. We would like to help gijo if we can.

I hope this clears things

 

[Sas]

That was a good post to clear things up petunia I meant when I posted my comment about the Bare Island trip that I would be happy with other people to tag along but as you are the guides, it's your call

I know what you mean about 'closed groups'. I am happy to do a shallow shore dive with just about anybody but for boat dives lately I have decided just to stick with my regular buddy, until I find other people (through shore dives) that fit in with our style of diving (very slow, with a camera and we have the same air consumption). Not so much that I don't like diving with new people it is just that I can tell they are often bored with our pace, and it ruins my dive if I know someone is unhappy! The last few boat dives I have done have been with new people that we are taking out at their request to get a bit more comfortable or an instabuddy assigned to us on the boat to make a group of three. I think I need a break from looking after people for a bit on boat dives for a while! Shore dives are always nice and easy and a good way to get to know people but me and my buddy do like to go out at night and do a dive with just us as we both know what the other is like.

Anyway, back OT! Went out today and had two great dives. First was at Foggy Reef and it was a nice enough dive, though the boat captain made a joke whilst I was at the stairs ready to jump out saying "You've got 15s to leave this boat!" but he was joking and I jumped out of the boat So I had a decent swim back to the shot line with everyone laughing at me... And at the end of the dive, my new diving friend struggled with the rear inflate BC he hired, not being used to it, and he had to be taken up by my other buddy for the ascent and safety stop. Lucky Paul had put a bit of extra weight on as it helped keep my friend down.

Then an *awesome* dive at Portsea. Saw a **4m** stingray and have a video to upload to YouTube so will post links. And a few pics to post later (about to go get pancakes with Dan!). Saw weedies, some creepy brittle seastars, heaps of fish Oh! And my drysuit didn't leak for the first time, I figured out the wrist seals were always slightly over the bend in my wrist as I was not pulling them back far enough, and my wrists would be a bit damp.

 

[bowlofpetunias]

:depressed:I'm jealous conditions didn't allow for a dive for us. I haven't been in the water since LEI with one thing and another.
Not sure if Almity1 will be there or T4fish but if T4fish or myself guide be prepared for a nice slow sedate dive with lots of time to take pics and look under ledges etc

 

[Sas]

:depressed:I'm jealous conditions didn't allow for a dive for us. I haven't been in the water since LEI with one thing and another.
Not sure if Almity1 will be there or T4fish but if T4fish or myself guide be prepared for a nice slow sedate dive with lots of time to take pics and look under ledges etc

Sounds awesome!!!

Anyway I have my Youtube video now of the Smooth Stingray we saw, when it stops at the end it was to eat a fish. I have another video where you can see a fish tail disappearing into its mouth but it is pretty blurry apart from that bit so I will just post this one:


And some photos
Blue Devil at Foggy Reef

Fiddler Ray hiding in some kelp at Portsea Pier. It was nice to find an alive one as usually we see hacked up Fiddler Rays that have been thrown back by fishers.

Pygmy Leatherjacket (this one I cropped)

Weedy sea dragon. Viz was not great so there is a bit of scatter. Still trying to work out how to photoshop that out but so far I have had no picture that has not turned out hideous after my attempts to touch them up!

And finally, here is our after dive cake that I made for my buddy's birthday in a few days, a blue ring octopus chocolate mud cake!

 

[bowlofpetunias]

:dropmouth:Wow! great stuff! :blinking: I must admit I am a bit of a purist I sometimes crop my shots but what I get is what I get I have to say on the few times I played with enhance I didn't feel the results were an improvement. Someone I know said well you ladies wear makeup on your faces so why not your pictures I asked him when he'd seen me wear makeup..... I've given up trying to fix up my face so why should I spend time doing it to my picture?:doh2:

I enjoy looking at pictures that help us show the wonderful underwater world to those who can't go there. I would rather my pictures really do that, a bit of backscatter lets you talk about silting. It's really not like an aquarium... they can go look in an aquarium to see the purified world. I'd rather let them see that and learn about the ocean, pollution, silting, sharks and fish carrying hooks etc. (note to self Put away your soapbox!)

 

[Sas]

:dropmouth:Wow! great stuff! :blinking: I must admit I am a bit of a purist I sometimes crop my shots but what I get is what I get I have to say on the few times I played with enhance I didn't feel the results were an improvement. Someone I know said well you ladies wear makeup on your faces so why not your pictures I asked him when he'd seen me wear makeup..... I've given up trying to fix up my face so why should I spend time doing it to my picture?:doh2:

I enjoy looking at pictures that help us show the wonderful underwater world to those who can't go there. I would rather my pictures really do that, a bit of backscatter lets you talk about silting. It's really not like an aquarium... they can go look in an aquarium to see the purified world. I'd rather let them see that and learn about the ocean, pollution, silting, sharks and fish carrying hooks etc. (note to self Put away your soapbox!)

Haha yea, I too usually just post exactly what came out of the camera. But I think that is more laziness rather than liking them natural. :blush: Though I do like the natural photos, as they are truer to what you see underwater, as a lot of the fancy ones that people do have the proper colours, not the colours you see at depth. I love my marine ID books because they show the natural kind of pictures to help ID, but I do also like to look at the fancy ones from time to time just as they are arty, different purposes to me really