Does sound wonderful. For the benefit of foreigners who dream of an extended trip to Australia (3 months), some questions…
- What wrecks, depths, etc. would be recommended for MOD2, MOD3 depths
- Any technical diving focused website info about dive sites.
- If a foreigner brought a CCR + drysuit + kit + experience with them are cylinders and gas rental easily available
- What kind of esoteric local rules would there be? Bureaucracy, cert recognition, medical malarkey, DiveMaster crap (must follow the leader), independent diving, i.e. stuff that stops you diving
- How friendly are the dive boats to visiting technical divers? Decent runtimes, lazy shot, relaxed attitude, happy with independent divers…?
That's probably going to differ between regions in Australia. I'm in Melbourne, where there is quite an active tech diving community. Most of the boat diving departs off Portsea or Queenscliff, and as well as plenty of 12-18m sites, there are also wall dives where you can get 50m. Just outside the bay there is the ships graveyard (
OM:NI Story: the Ships’ Graveyard) that has many wrecks ranging from 27m depth up to 70+
There are places to get He fills, and I've not done it not looked, but I'm sure you could find somewhere to hire CCR cylinders.
No real esoteric rules here. Just common sense. If the operator doesn't know you, you will generally need to show certs at the time of hiring gear or booking a charter, and give some level of confidence of diving in similar conditions (cold water, currents, etc). You may be asked to do a check-out shore dive.
Most boat dives, even the easier shallow ones will generally have twins and CCR divers (often course/training/practice dives) and very tech friendly. As above, provided you show an adequate level of competance visiting tech divers are well accepted.
DM led dives are the exception rather than the norm. It's a briefing of the site on the boat, skipper records your depth/runtime plan and go. If you want a guide, you'd need to find one yourself or on the boat ask to be buddied with another diver who is familiar with the wite.
If its wrecks you're after, the two most commonly dived ones are the J4 (a scuttled J-Class submarine with the hull stripped and the bow is detached making for an extremely straightforward penetration) and the ex-HMAS Canberra, recently scuttled in 30m after being prepped specifically for diving. The bridge is at about 12m.
There are a handful of wrecks in the 30-40m range, but the options open up as you get deeper - although scheduled trips to the deeper wrecks are not as frequent.
Here's a list of some of the wrecks -
Victorian Ships Graveyard Wreck Dives - The Scuba Doctor
I'm OC and adv nitrox so haven't dived and can't comment first hand on any of the 45m+ wrecks.
