Aussie diving September 2013

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alcina

Missing Diva.
ScubaBoard Supporter
Scuba Instructor
Divemaster
Messages
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Location
Western Australia
# of dives
I'm a Fish!
Finally got back out for a dive yesterday. Wasn't feeling great, but decided to head out anyway as I figured I wouldn't feel any worse if I had to snooze in the sun on the boat :) Huge swell running and our destination was always going to be pretty tough shooting conditions, but I love Cod Spot so jumped in. Very green and an enormous amount of sand all through the water column. In some areas it completely closed out visibility. I did not have high hopes for shooting WA without tons of sand mucking up the images so I didn't shoot much.

Played with a sea snake for a while - I do love those cuddles! Masses of fish including nice solid walls of baitfish, numerous big rankin cods and all sorts of the pretty reef fish darting about.

Tremendous fun riding the surge - at least 5m back and forth. There were a couple of patches of reef I know where you can zoom across like a downhill skier but without terribly significant changes in depth and through some small canyon areas - it just feels super cool. I admit I played around a bit just enjoying sweeping through the water LOL

Tried out my new heated vest for the first time and so far I love it. Only did a single dive so it wasn't much of a test and I hope to get out more this week and use it again before I give my full opinion on it, but oh so toasty warm when I first turned it on - I wanted to curl up and nap with it on :)

A few shots
Sand storm!
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So bendy
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Pretty sea fan
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bait
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Whale sharks are STILL here and yesterday was a perfect day out after weeks of monster swell and not a little wind. Swam with a couple of different whale sharks including a 5.5m male that we stayed with until everyone on the boat (except the two guides & me) was too tired to get back in. We'd probably still be out there swimming with him, if we could!

Humpback whales were everywhere and several babies were happily leaping and thrashing and playing. We had a mama humpie bring her bub right under us as we were snorkeling with the whale shark, too. That's always awesome!!

Dolphins, turtles, a gorgeous small black tip reef shark, a group of squid, a teensy squid swimming alone & inking up a storm, big schools of fish, calm waters, hot sunshine, gentle breeze - pretty nice day out!

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Alcina, you are making it very difficult to resist a trip to Ningaloo


lovely photos!
 
Resistance is futile!!

Crazy swell here. Yesterday it was flat calm and only 1.1m - today it's choppy as all get out and the swell rose to 3.5m!! Knew the dive sites were going to be junk, but tossed on the 60 for a change and crossed my fingers. Dropped in to Blizzard and there was no viz at all so we moved to Labyrinth. Viz was still 3m (being generous) and full of sand, but the marine life was outstanding so I signalled to the boat that the customers should come on down. Turtles, enormous school of fish, biggest rankin cod I've ever seen, octopus, sea snakes, friendly sweetlips, nice school of mid-sized barracuda, crocodilefish...couldn't really complain about anything other than not being able to shoot. I took two frames :)

Still glad I went out - always good to be under the sea.

But it turns out it CAN be too bad to shoot macro LOL

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So many humpback whales on the surface today, too. And loud whale song while under. Babies breaching and showing off. Love it!!
 
nice pics alcina, also like your Lembeh pics, we were there for 2 weeks at the beginning of August.

We stayed at Lembeh Resort and dived with critters@lembeh ... absolutely wonderful time.

The critters are amazing and they do have some wonderful coral also ... probably the highlight of the trip was the juvenile ornate ghost pipe fish ... truly amazing
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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