New with a goal to dive in Kelp Forest

[Casey Porter]

Hi All

I have no diving experience at all, but I have a dream of scuba diving in a kelp forest. I know this will take work to get up to,but my question is where do I start and how do I work up to that? I currently live in Australia is that changes anything.

Any help and advice would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Trailboss123]

Diving in a kelp forest is absolutely awesome and I can appreciate your dream to do so. You need to get started with becoming a certified scuba diver. Find a dive agency where you can become certified to scuba dive and progress from there. Diving in kelp is not that big of a deal and there is not a huge learning curve required. Here in Southern California people learn to dive and get certified in kelp forests every day.

 

[elmo]

There is definitely kelp off the Victorian and South Australian coasts, but for serious kelp forests, you want to be diving off Tassie (especially the East coast I believe). That water is cold. If you just want to tick it off the list you could get away with a thick wetsuit with hood and gloves. You could do a short dive before the cold was intolerable. But if you actually want to enjoy it, and spend long enough to see the marine life in any detail, you really want to be in a drysuit.
Kelp forests aren't particularly deep (the 18m depth limit of an open water course is sufficient), but the water may not be particularly calm, and visibility not great. Your aim should be to be comfortable in cold water with a bit of surge and current, and not great visibility. Starting from a zero diving basis, I would suggest:

• Do your open water course locally, which preferably is somewhere with cool/cold water (Victoria, SA, Tassie, Southern NSW) and variable conditions. Open Water is rarely taught in a drysuit (except in Scandinavia) but the jump to drysuit diving is much easier if you're already comfortable in cool water and a thick wetsuit.
• Dive, dive, dive. Don't be put off by questionable conditions (but stay safe and within your ability and training limits). Along the way you'll probably do Advanced Open Water (the 30m depth rating isn't necessary, but the experience is good). Focus on buoyancy and getting comfortable underwater. Around Melbourne, the pier dives along the Mornington Peninsula are a great way to get experience. Shallowish reef and wall dives are great too.
• Learn to dive in a drysuit. This may involve a course, or you could learn from an experienced mentor/buddy.
• Find a good dive operator in Tassie that can get you to the kelp forests.

I'm in Melbourne and can recommend some good shops and operators here if that helps.

 

[yle]

There is definitely kelp off the Victorian and South Australian coasts, but for serious kelp forests, you want to be diving off Tassie (especially the East coast I believe). That water is cold. If you just want to tick it off the list you could get away with a thick wetsuit with hood and gloves. You could do a short dive before the cold was intolerable. But if you actually want to enjoy it, and spend long enough to see the marine life in any detail, you really want to be in a drysuit.
Kelp forests aren't particularly deep (the 18m depth limit of an open water course is sufficient), but the water may not be particularly calm, and visibility not great. Your aim should be to be comfortable in cold water with a bit of surge and current, and not great visibility.

Just curious how cold the water is that you're referring to. In Southern California, our water tends to range from a low of 50 deg F (i.e. 10 deg C in the winter) to a high of 70 deg F (i.e. 20 deg C) in the summer. And we get divers in a mix of thicker (7 mm) wetsuits or drysuits.

My experience has been that if the water is above 60 deg F (15 C), a wetsuit is just fine. Anything below that quickly descends into drysuit territory (I have worn my wetsuit on dives at 10 C, and I agree with you... very low fun factor.)

 

[elmo]

Just curious how cold the water is that you're referring to. In Southern California, our water tends to range from a low of 50 deg F (i.e. 10 deg C in the winter) to a high of 70 deg F (i.e. 20 deg C) in the summer. And we get divers in a mix of thicker (7 mm) wetsuits or drysuits.

My experience has been that if the water is above 60 deg F (15 C), a wetsuit is just fine. Anything below that quickly descends into drysuit territory (I have worn my wetsuit on dives at 10 C, and I agree with you... very low fun factor.)

I am not familiar with California diving, but it sounds like your temperatures are very similar to ours around Melbourne (SE of mainland Australia). I agree that a drysuit is nice but by no means required for an enjoyable dive most of the time. We have some very nice kelp beds here, but the big kelp forests are off Tasmania. I've not yet dived there, but Tasmanian waters are colder, around the low-fun-factor ranges for a wetsuit.

To the OP, I forgot to mention that you should take the chance to enjoy all the diving you can. There is more out there worth looking at than just kelp.

 

[Casey Porter]

There is definitely kelp off the Victorian and South Australian coasts, but for serious kelp forests, you want to be diving off Tassie (especially the East coast I believe). That water is cold. If you just want to tick it off the list you could get away with a thick wetsuit with hood and gloves. You could do a short dive before the cold was intolerable. But if you actually want to enjoy it, and spend long enough to see the marine life in any detail, you really want to be in a drysuit.
Kelp forests aren't particularly deep (the 18m depth limit of an open water course is sufficient), but the water may not be particularly calm, and visibility not great. Your aim should be to be comfortable in cold water with a bit of surge and current, and not great visibility. Starting from a zero diving basis, I would suggest:

• Do your open water course locally, which preferably is somewhere with cool/cold water (Victoria, SA, Tassie, Southern NSW) and variable conditions. Open Water is rarely taught in a drysuit (except in Scandinavia) but the jump to drysuit diving is much easier if you're already comfortable in cool water and a thick wetsuit.
• Dive, dive, dive. Don't be put off by questionable conditions (but stay safe and within your ability and training limits). Along the way you'll probably do Advanced Open Water (the 30m depth rating isn't necessary, but the experience is good). Focus on buoyancy and getting comfortable underwater. Around Melbourne, the pier dives along the Mornington Peninsula are a great way to get experience. Shallowish reef and wall dives are great too.
• Learn to dive in a drysuit. This may involve a course, or you could learn from an experienced mentor/buddy.
• Find a good dive operator in Tassie that can get you to the kelp forests.

I'm in Melbourne and can recommend some good shops and operators here if that helps.

Thanks for the advice!
I currently live in Brisbane, but may I ask what kinda of a price all the training will cost?

 

[Casey Porter]

Thanks everyone for your wonderful advice!

 

[elmo]

Thanks for the advice!
I currently live in Brisbane, but may I ask what kinda of a price all the training will cost?

I should say my advice is what I recommend my favoured approach. Not necessarily the cheapest. You could get in touch with a Tasmanian dive operator and ask to do your Open Water course there if they say they can take you to the kelp forests. From there you can do what you like. Maybe you want to pursue cold water diving. Or maybe something warmer.

 

[drbill]

Or, if they offer them (and I'm sure they do) find an operator who could take you on a Discover SCUBA dive through your local kelp forests. Our dive operators here on Catalina do this locally.

 

[TMHeimer]

I've never dived those forests and only kelp I've seen is brown and maybe 4-5 feet long. Is there ever any real danger of getting seriously entangled in those giant kelps?