By the time I boarded SpoilSport I had been in Cairns for four days with my buddy Dave and we enjoyed a couple of nights at Gilligan's Hostel, a night at the Casino - where my beginner's luck paid off when I won $80 on a pokie machine after investing $1! Dave subsequently blew 20% of my winnings on a game of roulette (I was not amused). On Thursday 14, I left Dave on the boat to start cleaning (hee hee) whilst I cruised around the Qld township finishing off my Christmas shopping!
We all boarded the boat that night and got introduced to the other divers and crew. Even though Dave and I were travelling together, I was conscious of getting in his way so I thought of it as a solo trip. Although we got to dive a lot together which was cool.
My first of my three buddies on the trip was Nathan Mulholland. Nate turned out to be Dave's double; lives in Sydney, a dive instructor, dark hair, not bad lookin'
and an excellent diver so that worked out quite well. We dived Cod Hole together the next day and it blew me away, as the first dives on these kind of trips tend to do. Myself, Nate and George cruised down to around 23 metres where we saw our first Maori Wrasse, White Tip Reef Sharks, Parrotfish and of course Potato Cod!
When I surfaced, Dave said "Well, how was it?" and I was honestly speechless and all I could muster while shaking my head in amazement was "Mate..!!!" Luckily Dave and I got to do the second dive at Cod Hole together and we spent most of it dancing a Waltz on the bottom (don't ask!)
I decided to brave it my shortie - I have been diving with 9kgs in a neoprene drysuit here in New Zealand for too long! In addition, I did one dive on this trip in surf shorts and a rashie with no weight! (this has become a sort of tradition for me!)
I did have the sense to switch to my 5mm full suit for the night dive at Challenger Bay though where I dived for 1hr and 5 minutes with Dave that night. Did anyone else think it was like being in 'Lionfish Ville' on this expedition?! I have never seen so many! I was very pleased to see a turtle at the bay that night and also a moray eel but I wasn't so happy about surfacing so far away from the boat in the dark. As we bobbed up about 150m from SS, Nate said "Do ya wanna swim back?" and not wanting to look like a girly sissy I said "Yeah mate, it's not that far" so we did. Later on over a beer, Nathan told me he was being sarcastic and was about to summon the tender! D'oh. Needlesstosay I was pretty tired after the swim and upon exiting the water, gravity took over and I ended up pulling a leg muscle - ouch! (note to self: must learn sarcasm!)
After quite a rough crossing to Osprey we prepared for an early dive at Admiralty's Anchor and what a fantastic site this was! Abundance of aquatic life, staggering walls of coral and an awesome swim-through to boot. I loved it so much, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to dive it again that night with Dave - even with my sore leg.
I have to say my injury was well looked after by Brad, who came over every 30 mins or so to give me an ice pack and helped me in and out of the water until it was better. He did threaten to winch me down into the ocean with the tender hook but thankfully that didn't happen!
I think many passengers on this part of the trip will join me when I say the Shark Feed was simply spectacular and extremely well organised on behalf of the crew. It was great to dive the site beforehand and see the sharks assembling in anticipation. I got sucked by a very friendly remora on that dive, much to Kathleen's amusement! I was referring to the dive during an interview with Mike Ball as 'The Amphitheatre' and apparently this is what they're going to call the site now (I had just assumed that was what is was known as informally) but what a brilliant platform for such an event. It was just like having front row seats aye! I have sat and stared at the DVD and photos for hours and I still can't believe I was there. I feel very lucky to have witnessed that.
The next dive I did was back at Cod Hole with Dave and both of us logged this as our best dive ever. You might ask why? And I would struggle to answer that. First of all, I have dived quite a bit with Dave so we are familiar with each other's underwater antics (or rather I am familiar with his because I am super sensible beneath the waves) and we were also quite familiar with the site. Our maximum depth was about 20 metres, where we did handstands (balancing on our little fingers) on the mooring block, impersonated a bump-headed parrotfish (this moment was also immortalised on the DVD), told jokes and I tried singing but Dave claimed to not know the underwater version of Britney Spears' 'Ooops I did it again'!
My zero weight dive was also at Cod Hole, where we did a drift dive. Once we got going, we were flying and Matthew Fisher (my buddy) took that very seriously and promptly adopted his superman pose. This made me laugh so much and even more so after I realised he was still doing it five minutes later!
I enjoyed the winding down and socialising with everyone on the trip as much as I enjoyed the diving. I always feel that relationships are accelerated in situations like this because firstly, we are all confined in the same area and secondly, we are all aware we will only be there for a short time. I think this is why there is always such a strong bond between a lot of divers on liveaboard expeditions.
I can't say that particular bond existed between me and "The Three Amigos" however after a dive at Lighthouse Bommie. For those who didn't feel the wrath of my anger after this dive I will explain a little of what happened to enlighten you and hopefully help those who find themselves in similar circumstances.
Mat and I hopped in the water and headed for the shotline, Shea asked us if we wouldn't mind taking 'Amigo Uno' down because the others had gone for the bottom without him. "No worries" I said so off we went. We reached our maximum depth of 29 metres and started to dive the bommie. 10 or so minutes into the dive, Amigo Uno gives me the out of air signal and began to ascend, I tried to stop him or at least slow him but off he went, finning up as if his life depended on it. Instead of surfacing, however, Uno simply joined his mates eight or so metres above us, going the wrong way around the bommie! (and evidentally not so out of air). Mat and I continued our dive until I happened to look up to a scene of chaos; Uno told me that himself and Amigo Dos were both 'Out of Air' and would we mind buddying up with Numero Tres. Being the generous sort of person I am, I agreed as the pair ascended too fast, minus a safety stop. I went over to Senor Tres and confirmed we would buddy with him, he agreed...then spent the next full minute staring at a rock! (maybe he thought it was a stonefish, who knows!). For the remainder of the dive, I felt like a traffic warden, politely asking Mat to stop while ordering Tres to move a little faster than a nudibranch on its death bed! When we reached the garden at the top I was breathing a sigh of relief when our Amigo decided to ascend, again minus his safety stop, and exit the water without us! Lesson learnt let me tell you and you always learn heaps from this type of dive!
Pixie Pinnacle and Steve's Bommie are wonderful dives; plenty to see and easy to navigate (so long as you know which way clockwise is!). Steve's Bommie is one of my favourites for its diversity if nothing else and I this time I witnessed trevally and yellowtail frantically schooling when a white tip moved in - that was spectacular! My last dive of the trip at Flare Point was with Mat and we were lucky enough to see a male cuttlefish surrounded by four females. A friend of mine asked me how did I sex the cuttlefish and I answered: "Well, the bigger one was showing off his array of colours and posing with his tentacles while the other four didn't appear to be the slightest bit interested or impressed!" www.mikeball.com
DiveDiva
www.scubadive.net.nz
We all boarded the boat that night and got introduced to the other divers and crew. Even though Dave and I were travelling together, I was conscious of getting in his way so I thought of it as a solo trip. Although we got to dive a lot together which was cool.
My first of my three buddies on the trip was Nathan Mulholland. Nate turned out to be Dave's double; lives in Sydney, a dive instructor, dark hair, not bad lookin'
When I surfaced, Dave said "Well, how was it?" and I was honestly speechless and all I could muster while shaking my head in amazement was "Mate..!!!" Luckily Dave and I got to do the second dive at Cod Hole together and we spent most of it dancing a Waltz on the bottom (don't ask!)
I decided to brave it my shortie - I have been diving with 9kgs in a neoprene drysuit here in New Zealand for too long! In addition, I did one dive on this trip in surf shorts and a rashie with no weight! (this has become a sort of tradition for me!)
I did have the sense to switch to my 5mm full suit for the night dive at Challenger Bay though where I dived for 1hr and 5 minutes with Dave that night. Did anyone else think it was like being in 'Lionfish Ville' on this expedition?! I have never seen so many! I was very pleased to see a turtle at the bay that night and also a moray eel but I wasn't so happy about surfacing so far away from the boat in the dark. As we bobbed up about 150m from SS, Nate said "Do ya wanna swim back?" and not wanting to look like a girly sissy I said "Yeah mate, it's not that far" so we did. Later on over a beer, Nathan told me he was being sarcastic and was about to summon the tender! D'oh. Needlesstosay I was pretty tired after the swim and upon exiting the water, gravity took over and I ended up pulling a leg muscle - ouch! (note to self: must learn sarcasm!)
After quite a rough crossing to Osprey we prepared for an early dive at Admiralty's Anchor and what a fantastic site this was! Abundance of aquatic life, staggering walls of coral and an awesome swim-through to boot. I loved it so much, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to dive it again that night with Dave - even with my sore leg.
I have to say my injury was well looked after by Brad, who came over every 30 mins or so to give me an ice pack and helped me in and out of the water until it was better. He did threaten to winch me down into the ocean with the tender hook but thankfully that didn't happen!
I think many passengers on this part of the trip will join me when I say the Shark Feed was simply spectacular and extremely well organised on behalf of the crew. It was great to dive the site beforehand and see the sharks assembling in anticipation. I got sucked by a very friendly remora on that dive, much to Kathleen's amusement! I was referring to the dive during an interview with Mike Ball as 'The Amphitheatre' and apparently this is what they're going to call the site now (I had just assumed that was what is was known as informally) but what a brilliant platform for such an event. It was just like having front row seats aye! I have sat and stared at the DVD and photos for hours and I still can't believe I was there. I feel very lucky to have witnessed that.
The next dive I did was back at Cod Hole with Dave and both of us logged this as our best dive ever. You might ask why? And I would struggle to answer that. First of all, I have dived quite a bit with Dave so we are familiar with each other's underwater antics (or rather I am familiar with his because I am super sensible beneath the waves) and we were also quite familiar with the site. Our maximum depth was about 20 metres, where we did handstands (balancing on our little fingers) on the mooring block, impersonated a bump-headed parrotfish (this moment was also immortalised on the DVD), told jokes and I tried singing but Dave claimed to not know the underwater version of Britney Spears' 'Ooops I did it again'!
My zero weight dive was also at Cod Hole, where we did a drift dive. Once we got going, we were flying and Matthew Fisher (my buddy) took that very seriously and promptly adopted his superman pose. This made me laugh so much and even more so after I realised he was still doing it five minutes later!
I enjoyed the winding down and socialising with everyone on the trip as much as I enjoyed the diving. I always feel that relationships are accelerated in situations like this because firstly, we are all confined in the same area and secondly, we are all aware we will only be there for a short time. I think this is why there is always such a strong bond between a lot of divers on liveaboard expeditions.
I can't say that particular bond existed between me and "The Three Amigos" however after a dive at Lighthouse Bommie. For those who didn't feel the wrath of my anger after this dive I will explain a little of what happened to enlighten you and hopefully help those who find themselves in similar circumstances.
Mat and I hopped in the water and headed for the shotline, Shea asked us if we wouldn't mind taking 'Amigo Uno' down because the others had gone for the bottom without him. "No worries" I said so off we went. We reached our maximum depth of 29 metres and started to dive the bommie. 10 or so minutes into the dive, Amigo Uno gives me the out of air signal and began to ascend, I tried to stop him or at least slow him but off he went, finning up as if his life depended on it. Instead of surfacing, however, Uno simply joined his mates eight or so metres above us, going the wrong way around the bommie! (and evidentally not so out of air). Mat and I continued our dive until I happened to look up to a scene of chaos; Uno told me that himself and Amigo Dos were both 'Out of Air' and would we mind buddying up with Numero Tres. Being the generous sort of person I am, I agreed as the pair ascended too fast, minus a safety stop. I went over to Senor Tres and confirmed we would buddy with him, he agreed...then spent the next full minute staring at a rock! (maybe he thought it was a stonefish, who knows!). For the remainder of the dive, I felt like a traffic warden, politely asking Mat to stop while ordering Tres to move a little faster than a nudibranch on its death bed! When we reached the garden at the top I was breathing a sigh of relief when our Amigo decided to ascend, again minus his safety stop, and exit the water without us! Lesson learnt let me tell you and you always learn heaps from this type of dive!
Pixie Pinnacle and Steve's Bommie are wonderful dives; plenty to see and easy to navigate (so long as you know which way clockwise is!). Steve's Bommie is one of my favourites for its diversity if nothing else and I this time I witnessed trevally and yellowtail frantically schooling when a white tip moved in - that was spectacular! My last dive of the trip at Flare Point was with Mat and we were lucky enough to see a male cuttlefish surrounded by four females. A friend of mine asked me how did I sex the cuttlefish and I answered: "Well, the bigger one was showing off his array of colours and posing with his tentacles while the other four didn't appear to be the slightest bit interested or impressed!" www.mikeball.com
DiveDiva
www.scubadive.net.nz
- just a big red X unfortunately
