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It took me *ages* to recognise the pipefish in those photos :blush:, great to see it in a lot of detail petunia
CX8, thanks for posting the pics! I am getting excited for Fish Rock now. Can't wait to see a GNS in the wild. Not long to wait actually!
Did you click on the thumbnail to enlarge it?:blinking: (not sure that grin is cheeky enough
erv: 
Really? Am I just getting used to looking for them? The trick is to look for the eyes!
YES I clicked. And I also got your email I am just bad at spotting them I guess. 
I am glad I write down lots as I forget otherwise. 
) so I never thought about buying one as I don't think he sold them. I guess you have an option now if you get both I have a finger spool on my SMB and it is good, I send it up at 15m usually or sometimes 10, depends what kind of stops we are doing. I was diving with another guy who had his SMB on some kind of weight and it only had five metres of line. He watched me send up mine at 14m and later said 'hmm that looks easier'. I like my finger spool Me and Paul had a decent night with the camera too so hopefully I can post some good shots when he sends me some soon. Anyway, here are some shots from the other day that Paul sent :
Tambja Verconis @ Blairgowrie I think
:blinking:Here's the missing smiley.. or was it this one?
Actually Sas I like the puffer shot best of the lot. I just like the feel of it and the way it fades to black....that's the thing... everyone likes different things!
:blinking:Actually there was nothing wrong with my primary reg. The AIRII had a steady low level freeflow. I couldn't get it to stop and it wasn't really bad enough to abort the dive. Our entry point would have meant a very long surface swim to get to an exit if I did. Could be done if necessary but I didn't think it was necessary.
The sound of the continuous bubbling was really annoying me. I hated to waste the air as I had a lousey fill so I just detuned my Delta and Breathed off the AIRII so it didn't waste as much. I actually thought it was a good practice exercise anyway. One good thing about it was playing around with inflating my BC manually... breathe in then hold the button while breathing out... dead easy! fish normally manually inflates his at depth by taking the reg out but this is even easier! Great idea if you are trying to conserve air!
We couldn't fix it at home to the LDS fixed it for me and I have learned something valuable... how good is that? I've actually been thinking of getting an occy for some time. I know you are only supposed to use an occy to safely end the dive but the only other time I had to use my occy we completed the dive a bit soon than normal but I wouldn't say we aborted it. Never had to share air yet.... close once but the instabuddy went for someone else's air but that is another story
A buddy had a cracked SPG once which leaked a fair bit but he just checked his gas more frequently and we got a good dive in - would have liked to have seen what his 'SAC' from that dive would have been Last night I was taking nice pictures of a pufferfish and I turned around to see him frantically signalling OOA (he is a good actor so I never can tell if it is serious or not, which is probably a good thing!) It has been good practice - especially for when I did actually have to share air with someone once for real! I switched to 5' hose and a small backup around my neck - not sure if I had that when I was in Sydney, found it *really* easy to share air that way! Especially when I get my reg stolen unexpectedly as I can pretty much duck my chin and grab the backup hands free sometimes 
These are my least favourite It is a scalyfin damselfish and they bite me constantly. 
At first I thought it was a weird looking one of them.
Ok this shot is not very technically good and is not framed well at all but I love the expression on the puffer's face. This one was very inquisitive and kept swimming into the camera
I like this one too.
I always love to see these guys when I'm diving... but they never come visit me like this, I always have to chase them down (but never distress them enough to inflate). They just look so helpless all the time, wiggling to get away and those big eyes rolling around trying to see if you're still following
Puffers are my favourite fish, they are the most adorable I think so I try to take lots of photos but struggle in the day time as they run away just like you've described.
