Aussie Diving July 1-15

[Gudge]

After a really big swell came up on Friday afternoon and put paid to any thoughts of diving outside Exmouth Gulf we got out for one 90 minute dive on Bundegi Reef inside Exmouth Gulf today. Weather conditions were almost perfect after initially getting up this morning and being greeted by intermittent light rain and a perfect rainbow. We had light winds, clear sky, slightly chilly (for around here ) water at 21.5°C and 15 to 20 metres visiblity. I was set up for super macro today with my 100 macro on a 1.4X teleconverter and my Woody's dioptre. Here's some of favourite shots from the dive:

 

[toefa]

Wow Gudge... wow :shocked2:

Your :uwphotographer: skills are amazing

 

[roby jeff]

sas
love your pics..pic of michael framed by the kelp & the puffer are my favorites..

 

[bowlofpetunias]

Gudge thanks for sharing. Your shots are always spectacular and never dissapoint!

Sas I actually like the shot of the kelp forest.. captures the gloomy feeling of the environment. The whole idea is to capture what is underwater and your shots are doing exactly that! I love the puffer too!

So Sydney is still at 16C. Last dive we did was two weeks ago and that is what it was then. I am starting to get desperate again. Had to work today so yesterday was spent doing all the "weekend chores" and fish has been slaving away on some program for work. No diving for us this weekend

 

[Sas]

sas
love your pics..pic of michael framed by the kelp & the puffer are my favorites..

Thanks Yea the viz was great today so helped with those type of shots

Sas I actually like the shot of the kelp forest.. captures the gloomy feeling of the environment. The whole idea is to capture what is underwater and your shots are doing exactly that! I love the puffer too!

Yea the puffer was very friendly! He just floated there staring at me whilst I took a bunch of shots. They tend to be quite skittish but I guess if this one lives out in the backbeaches it probably deals with a lot worse things than a diver poking a camera in its face

The kelp looked much clearer underwater but came out a bit fuzzy with my camera. It was quite a fair way away but I wanted to get a distance shot. It was actually just an awesome scene underwater - I was swimming along in a bit of a daze and looked over to my left and happened to see just TONNES of huge kelp trees, really just awesome!

So Sydney is still at 16C. Last dive we did was two weeks ago and that is what it was then. I am starting to get desperate again. Had to work today so yesterday was spent doing all the "weekend chores" and fish has been slaving away on some program for work. No diving for us this weekend

Oh I hope it stays at 16C for my trip up next month! I can use my wetsuit easily then!!! Hope you can get out soon and enjoy the warm(ish) water whilst it lasts.

 

[bowlofpetunias]

Thanks Yea the viz was great today so helped with those type of shots

Oh I hope it stays at 16C for my trip up next month! I can use my wetsuit easily then!!! Hope you can get out soon and enjoy the warm(ish) water whilst it lasts.

Actually not likely to be colder than it is now.. 99 of my dives since I got the computer that logs temperature show between 16 and 21 only 6 shown as 15.

Sometimes I think I would trade our "warmer water" for some decent Viz even if it meant having to dive in the 5 mil!

 

[toefa]

Hey BOP, How are you? Are your logs over previous Winter's? I will be very happy if we don't get below 16

 

[Sas]

Actually not likely to be colder than it is now.. 99 of my dives since I got the computer that logs temperature show between 16 and 21 only 6 shown as 15.

Awesome! I dived Camp Cove in August last year and had 15C. 15C is about the lowest I will go wet now if doing multiple dives. I can handle down to 9C for single dives I am hoping we can do a dive at Bare Island when I come to Sydney Hope Sas is around!

Sometimes I think I would trade our "warmer water" for some decent Viz even if it meant having to dive in the 5 mil!

Yes or you could get a drysuit. Winter brings better viz here (av 10-15m rather than 5-10m) but this year has not been great so far. I am not sure why. Perhaps out in the bay is better when you are off a boat but close to shore hasn't been that great lately (other than the backbeaches but when diveable I have never had below 10m and it is usually 20m). But, there has been rain and there is run off at the shore sites we go to. Yesterday we only had about four metres and it was really dirty at Williamstown. :depressed: I have no underwater pictures though cos I forgot to close my battery lid and the camera would not turn on properly! Woops! Lucky it was quite barren and I didn't see a single thing that made me regret not having a working camera. But I got a couple of land shots so here is where I dived yesterday:

A rescue class had told us the viz was great! Clearly we have different ideas of what is great. They also mocked us for our drysuits But Michael yelled out "at least we'll be warm!!!"

 

[almitywife]

note to self: pack gear, send to Sas... at least it will get wet!

if i kept a log book i would know how long its been since i went diving

 

[Sprocket]

Camera batteries didn't like the 12 degree water at Whyalla, but I got a few shots under Edithburg jetty. My camera is an ancient Olympus C-740 in a PT-018 housing with no strobe, so here's making do.