Aussie diving, 1st Feb to 15th Feb.....

[bowlofpetunias]

Well if that first shot isn't a keeper I don't know what is! Thanks for sharing and giving AW her turtle warm fuzzie for the day!

I haven't looked at my shots yet from today. AW.... will it make you feel better if we tell you the viz was about 10+ M but the temp was 15 - 16 brrr... was wishing for my wetsuit!

You should be proud of us..... we played "Are you Worthy" today for you :lmao2:

 

[almitywife]

.......
You should be proud of us..... we played "Are you Worthy" today for you :lmao2:

*sniff* i could only be prouder if you pee'd

 

[bowlofpetunias]

*sniff* i could only be prouder if you pee'd

:blush: wellll..... I thought of you... :mooner: and had to contribute to the thermo cline

somehow didn't seem quite right without you tho! but I am a so I couldn't wait till next weekend...

 

[thanksforallthefish]

Nice pics Tassie ... dont really see anything wrong with any of them especially the first ... how big was the clown???


AW .. it was freezing today ... absolutely freezing ... ridiculous

 

[bowlofpetunias]

Well we visited the pipehorses today. I found two babies so tiny my camera just wouldn't focus on them. I am including a shot with one of them near the tip of my finger and a cropped version of it. I know it isn't a good shot isn't even in focus but it gives you an idea how tiny these things are. This one wouldn't be big enough to wrap his tail around a fairly small pea!

The other two shots are two other individuals.

 

[bowlofpetunias]

Here is a selection including the required box fish for Sas... had to include that for your birthday Sas

The little octopus was very cute the way he was hanging onto the roof of his little crevice. The half Banded Seaperch was happy to pose for a few snaps in his sponge.

The little clingfish are so pretty blending in with the sea tulip!

The most interesting thing was the fighting blue groupers. They seemed to be in a very serious territorial fight. By the time I got the camera on video one was flying past me chasing the other off. You just don't realize their power till you see on decide to do some serious swimming! The one was so excited that when I rolled over to try to get a better look at him ... he decided to have a bit of a go at my fin until he realized is wasn't the interloper!

 

[digital_steve]

Another six pounds would be nice I dropped 9lb with the switch to the BP (my BC was very padded).

Thanks heaps of the link for fitting my BP/W I am using an OMS BP with a 32lb OMS wing, and it has two tank bands, not an STA. The harness was made for me in the store out of webbing and some d-rings - they fitted it pretty well considering what I have read on that link though they did say I might want to move the wing higher or lower on the plate and loosen the straps if it was too tight with my wetsuit. I took apart the harness to add some bike tubing on, it's really easy to modify myself! The crotch strap is a clip on one though so not like in that link (but they told me a threaded one is easy to do) and my waist buckle ends up in the middle when I put it on (but pretty high like in that pic!)

I will go through that site in more detail at home later to check the fit again. It takes me a few dives to sort out things!

Going to get a thigh pocket that sits on the harness to hold my spare mask and shears too.

I tried out a comfort harness too but really didn't like that as there's too much stuff on it. That is why I like having the really simple harness, there's nothing much on my chest and dangling off my shoulders, etc.

Do you have a protector padded type thing on the BP? I have seen a few people with those and was wondering if I should have one of them...

Let me preface by saying that i'm totally not an expert on anything diving... actually anything at all, so take whatever i say with a grain of salt. I'm only commenting on my experiences (limited as they are).
On my zeagle plate (that a mate has on permanent loan) i didn't have a backplate pad and never felt the need for one. If i was diving in a rash vest and a stainless plate all the time then maybe, but i dive dry year round so i never saw the need for a plate pad.
I currently have a halcyon plate setup and it comes with a 'mc pack' thing; it's useless. The only thing it does is look good and make it hard to get to the bolts if you want to swap out your twinset/STA.
So i wouldn't bother if i was you.

I went through a stage of adjusting my plate and harness after every single dive. It's a crap idea as you never get a feel for what's going on. I found, when i got another backplate, that setting up as per hogarthian and then diving it a bit before making changes, and then doing a couple of dives after that to see if the changes were right worked better for me. YMMV.
Don't get too caught up in it, otherwise you spend a dive worrying about your kit and how it feels and it generally just detracts from the diving... which is what demotivated me for a bit at any rate. Too gear focused.

Have fun!

Rohan - good on ya for getting back into it!

 

[AussieByron]

I posted this in the photo section:

I had a dive on tuesday with Pete Hitchins from SWR Dive Centre and Alfred 1 from Alan Powers, Vanuatu. Pete was taking Alfred back to the airport after his holiday with pete and decided to stop in Byron for a dive.

I took the opportunity to take care of them both as they have taken care of me many times. Pete when I dive with him at (South West Rocks Dive Centre) and Alfred looks after me when I dive the Coolidge (Allan Power Dive Tours, Vanuatu).

I had my new Nikon D90 with 10-17mm and Pete asked if he could have a play with it on the dive as he was interested in the camera. So Pete ended up with my nice big new camera in his hands for the dives.

All shots taken on my camera by Peter Hitchins and no editing at Julian Rocks, Byron Bay

 

[AussieByron]

I took over 300 shots today of the heaps of Leopard sharks which are around at the moment. I counted 10 at once and there must have been close to 20 in the area. Flickr isnt allowing me to upload my pics today so I will post some later.

Cheers Mark

 

[bowlofpetunias]

Brilliant shots AB thanks for sharing them. I love Mantas! They are so graceful I could watch them for ages and forget to take a picture!

When we were at Lady Elliott they had posted pictures of the underside of Mantas so they can ID them by their markings. They asked people to check their pics so they could keep track of what Manta was sighted when and where. No problem identifying that one from those shots hmm?