Quote:
Originally Posted by gnulab
Hi there,
I have confirmed plan to visit Australia end of this year. My itinerary is:
21-27 Dec: Sydney
27-01 Jan: Melbourne
I would like to fit in few dives in those 2 cities.
In sydney, I was recommended by a friend to go with prodive.com.au.
I am interested in their midnight dive at sydney harbour, and if I were to take that up, that will push back my travelling to Melbourne on the 29th, since they do their dive on the 28th.
So, my questions are:
1. I am base in Indonesia, so that means I would like to see things that are different than what Indonesia has to offer. I saw a website that do submarine wreck dives! So any recommendation which are the unique dive sites?
2. Which dive shop you'd recommend and will take even a single person?
3. The date travelling from sydney - melb is flexible, it doesn't need to be on the 27th Dec.
Please advise. Thank you.
Henry
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Hi Henry,
If you are interested in submarine wreck dives we have a number of submarines in Melbourne that are within recreational limits (a few in the 30-40m range) and one at 26m called the J4. You will need to have AOW for the J4 and some kind of Deep qualification for the ones below 30m (the charters will require you to present cert cards). I am guessing from your experience level the J4 might be the best one to do. It is a great dive!
There are a few other shallow wrecks such as the Coogee (30m) and also the Eliza Ramsden (18m), they are amazing sites as well!
Some other sites to consider are ones along Lonsdale Wall and there is plenty of shore diving at Piers and places like that. If you want to do some shore dives let me know and I can get more detail about this. There is drift diving as well though I would not recommend this unless you bring a buddy with you as the way the boats run drift dives is stupid (everybody has to hang on a line and this means entanglement and other problems usually).
Anyway, the charter I use in Melbourne is
Welcome to Dive Victoria | Dive Victoria. You can hire all your gear there and they run charters from either side of Port Phillip Bay. There are a list of dive sites on their website you can check out and also an itinerary with dive sites.
For diving in Melbourne, the boats do not anchor. You descend, swim around a bit and then ascend whereever you end up. So
definitely bring an SMB (don't think you can rent one) and you'll need to be able to launch it midwater in a strong current if you are diving inside the bay. DMs are not provided so if you show up as a single diver you will be buddied up with someone on a boat. If you don't have an SMB or are not comfortable with launching one in those conditions, I would recommend trying to find a buddy that can on the boats (i.e. a local diver).
With Sydney I have only dived there a few times and once I used Prodive shop in Coogee, and was not impressed by their service. They gave me grief about how much weight I required when I tried to hire a belt (big deal, some of us need more) and they also required me to pay a deposit with my credit card, rather than take an imprint, which I am never a fan of as the refund did not arrive in my statement for a fair bit later. I found their gear hire VERY expensive also. But yea YMMV.
Some other members are better qualified to comment on Sydney diving but they have recommended a charter called Scubaroos
scubaroos.com.au and whilst each time the weather has been too bad for me to actually go on my booked boat
I have found the captain Yves very friendly and accommodating for me (i.e. running a boat dive to a location I asked for, updating me about weather, etc). They do midnight dives in the harbour too at the end of the month.
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