Well last weekend I was lucky enough to go for a long weekend to Sydney (5 days) and managed to fit in 4 dives (2 of which with a friend working there as an Instructor.
On the first day there were two groups of O/W students, me and some flying fish! The "fishes" as they are affectionally called are people that crash course the DM course through a company called Flying Fish - some of them had never even dived before! Anyway I was teamed up with 4 "fishes" as they had completed the course but needed some more dives under their belt before becoming DM (not getting into the politics of that one!)
Dive 1 was at a place called Blue Fish - there may have been but I did not see any - blue ones that is. This was the first dive for my new camera housing so it was done without the camera inside - bit strange. Mainly boulders but we did find a gaint cuttle fish and a sleeping Wobbiegong shark.
Dive 2 - camera on board now so some serious critter hunting! This dive was at Shelly's with a mainly sandy bottom. More Wobbie's and another Giant Cuttle fish. Then something bright caught my attention on some sea weed - got in for a photo as it looked like a small octopus. It was and it was a Blue Ringed one - why did noone tell me before that this was the most deadly venom going?! Fortunately my training in look but dont touch came in handy!!
Back on board a storm kicked up so we had an entertaining ride in with some very green O/W students!
Day 2, Dive 3 - yeah finally hooked up with Cath and off we went Weedy Sea Dragon hunting. Just about given up and back at the anchor and there he was!! Also plenty of very pretty nudibranch as well as an enormous fish head - I'm glad we did not bump into whatever had the rest as it was huge!
Dive 4 still at Colours (same as dive 3) as you can expect pretty much the same as dive 3 except we got a little lost and were late back on board (also noone told me max dive time was 45mins!).
All in all I thoroughly enjoyed my diving. Viz was not great, water temp about 20 degrees and plenty of new stuff to see. Plus I got to try my camera out... For the pictures go to Sydney Diving (these pictures are low res to enable speedy downloading - I hope!)
Now just to plan the next trip....
On the first day there were two groups of O/W students, me and some flying fish! The "fishes" as they are affectionally called are people that crash course the DM course through a company called Flying Fish - some of them had never even dived before! Anyway I was teamed up with 4 "fishes" as they had completed the course but needed some more dives under their belt before becoming DM (not getting into the politics of that one!)
Dive 1 was at a place called Blue Fish - there may have been but I did not see any - blue ones that is. This was the first dive for my new camera housing so it was done without the camera inside - bit strange. Mainly boulders but we did find a gaint cuttle fish and a sleeping Wobbiegong shark.
Dive 2 - camera on board now so some serious critter hunting! This dive was at Shelly's with a mainly sandy bottom. More Wobbie's and another Giant Cuttle fish. Then something bright caught my attention on some sea weed - got in for a photo as it looked like a small octopus. It was and it was a Blue Ringed one - why did noone tell me before that this was the most deadly venom going?! Fortunately my training in look but dont touch came in handy!!
Back on board a storm kicked up so we had an entertaining ride in with some very green O/W students!
Day 2, Dive 3 - yeah finally hooked up with Cath and off we went Weedy Sea Dragon hunting. Just about given up and back at the anchor and there he was!! Also plenty of very pretty nudibranch as well as an enormous fish head - I'm glad we did not bump into whatever had the rest as it was huge!
Dive 4 still at Colours (same as dive 3) as you can expect pretty much the same as dive 3 except we got a little lost and were late back on board (also noone told me max dive time was 45mins!).
All in all I thoroughly enjoyed my diving. Viz was not great, water temp about 20 degrees and plenty of new stuff to see. Plus I got to try my camera out... For the pictures go to Sydney Diving (these pictures are low res to enable speedy downloading - I hope!)
Now just to plan the next trip....
