Need help diving in/around Sydney!!

[John2006]

Hi All,

Am headed Down Under for two weeks 48 hours from now. We're going to be splitting the time equally between Trinity Beach/Cairns & Sydney. I have my dives sorted in Queensland, but would love to get a couple of wet suit dives in/around Sydney. Any reccomendations vis-a-vis sights/operators? How's the temp/viz (coming from Boston I'm used to doing cold wet suit dives, w/hood, gloves, etc...)? Do any operators go out during the week?

Many thanks in advance for the tips!
John

 

[Fina]

Hi John,
Good to hear you're trying out diving in Sydney.. it'll definitley show you another side to diving in Sydney. We do alot of shore diving in Sydney. You could probably call up any dive shop and ask them to get a DM to take you to one or two sites during the week, and most shops organise shore dives on the weekends. I dive with Deep 6 Diving at Clovelly - they do a shore dive or two every Sunday morning and have a brilliant instructor named Greg. It's close to some of the best shore dives in Sydney - Shark Point, Bare Island, South Maroubra and quite a few more. Unfortunately they don't do regular boat dives at the moment, so if you're desperate for a boat dive you could try Plunge Dive at Fairlight or Abyss Dive at Ramsgate. Pro Dive are a big company and the only shop I know of that regularly run boat dives during the week, but I haven't experienced them personally.

We're just coming out of winter here (The weather is clear and bright right now though) and it's the coldest time of the year in the water. On average its about 16 degrees celcius so definitley bring your hood and gloves!! Sydney shore dives generally don't have great visibility but in the last week we've had good conditions and many sites around 10-15m vis. Once you get offshore a bit on the boats it can be even clearer.

 

[almitywife]

how exciting for you!

the thing about sydney is that we have so much shore diving on offer... but it helps to know where you will be staying in sydney and what would you like to see and will you have transport??

like Fina said, i hear good things about abyss diving (carl is a SB member here somewhere), Peter and Zoe at Plunge run a good shop and Paul & Jonathan at Shiprock dive are good also but im usually hanging out with Frogdive as thats where hubby works... in fact their monthly club bbq is this sunday at bare island

i take our friends to Kurnell at Sutherland (weedy sea dragons) and Bare Island for red pacific indian fish, pygmy pipehorse, big blue gropers ect but dont ignore shelley beach (manly dive centre) as an easy shore in and out and here is some video of saturdays dive there; http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?t=197059

its our winter so the temps are down but the vis is up so enjoy!!!!

 

[Northerner]

im usually hanging out with Frogdive as thats where hubby works... in fact their monthly club bbq is this sunday at bare island

Ooh. Might come along to this - is it a 9am meet or something? Will you all have a big frog dive t shirt on so we will recognise you?!

Graham