One of my buddys is currently in Denmark spending time with his family. He
sez its damn cold & dark over there .. so having lots of time up his sleeve
he finally got around to writing up his trip report for the WAUPS mag. Now
I just have to work on Wendy for her trip report about diving with the GWS
off South Africa - she won that prize in the same Bunbury Aquatic Shootout
that Thomas won his Ocean Trek trip in.  Enjoy, Viv

Trip report: Jervis Bay Shootout   April 2002 by Thomas Wernberg, WAUPS

In November last year I was lucky enough to win the best vertebrate
category in the Bunbury Aquatic Shootout. The prize was a live-aboard trip
for two on board the Ocean Trek in Jervis Bay 200km south of Sydney. When I
later heard that Ocean Trek was hosting an underwater photographic
competition I decided it was time to cash my prize.

Loaded with the obligatory 30+ kg’s of dive- and camera gear (and a
toothbrush) my partner and beautiful model, Jeanett, and I left Perth for
the east coast. An over-priced and under-serviced Qantas flight took us to
Sydney where we spent the night in a hostel in ‘The Cross’. The following
day was amazing: wall to wall sunshine and perfect for cruising around
Sydney Harbour, enjoying the opera house, the bridge and the fantastic
scenery. We had organized a ride from Sydney to Jervis Bay with some other
contestants (Rob Westerdyk and Neil & Lynn Vincent) - they were supposed to
pick us up at 5pm but didn’t arrive until 7.30pm, courtesy of Sydney
traffic!

‘Ocean Trek’ is a nice purpose built Cat. It is quite big, but with 18
contestants, a few models and of course a crew of five, headed by Mick and
Lynn, it was pretty full. The trip was organized so that the two first days
were competition-diving, the third day was judging and diving and the last
day was packing down and diving. Each contestant got four rolls of 36
exposure film: two Velvia and two Sensia. Film shot on the first day was
developed over night so it was possible to evaluate what was in the box and
make the necessary adjustments. Each contestant was judged on a portfolio
of six slides (two macro, two marine life and two wide angle) which were
scored individually and the scores added. The judges were Mike Cufer, and
Kevin and Cherie Deacon.

There was of course a lot of bull-shitting and ‘good’ advice during the
first days of competition, particularly because most people knew each other
from previous years Ocean Trek competitions. The atmosphere was very
friendly and even though everyone were serious about their photography and
the competition, having fun together was the primary objective for all.

Diving conditions were fair, but not exceptionally good. Most of the time
it was overcast with the occasional drizzle, but the sun did peak through
the clouds every now and again. Most importantly, the sea was relatively
calm and the viz was quite good on most dives. There was a lot of different
stuff to photograph and something for every lens and capability – several
different kinds of nudibranchs, sea tulips, various echinoderms, giant
cuttlefish, occies, a host of fish in all shapes and sizes, most notably
lots of leafy seadragons (I must have seen over 50 on the four days of
diving). I even got a reasonable 1:3 shot of a blue-ring octopus, but that
was, of course, on a night dive after the comp. With the abundance of
leafy’s I had expected quite a few to show up on the screen on judging
night, but there were only a couple. I guess they were just too common!
Anyway, no one could complain about lacking photo opportunities!

Jeanett was going to model for me and I thought it would be neat with some
photos of an underwater photographer so I hired a camera for her – don’t
ever make the mistake of giving your novice-photographer model a loaded
camera: she was virtually impossible to get in contact with and it was even
harder to make her obey my hand signals. Very frustrating for me, but she
had a ball of a time and was very proud of her photos afterwards. They were
not at all bad for a first timer, but I hope she now she has a much better
appreciation of just how hard it is to make good photos underwater.

First place was won by Nigel Motyer, an Irish bloke on holiday. Second,
third and fourth place were won by Neil Vincent, Rob Westerdyk and Marcel
Widmer. I was lucky enough to get a shared fifth place – not bad in that
company! The total sum of prizes was in excess of $13,000. Everybody got a
prize and the prizes were absolutely phenomenal, ranging from a $100 gift
voucher for 18th place to the $2,000 top price of 10 days live-aboard in
the Solomon Islands. I got an Aqualung regulator and some smaller things
for my fifth place. All the images can be accessed via the ocean trek web
page (www. oceantrek.com.au) under the ’Trekers Log’. The winning galleries
are well worth a visit - and just in case someone actually checks out my
images I better acknowledge Glenn Cowans’ (or was it Louise’s idea?)
beautiful Rotto-slide for the inspiration to the seastar arm.

It was a fantastic trip with top rewards; I met a bunch of fantastic people
and I learnt a trick or two, but maybe most significantly, Jeanett
experienced a group of full-on uw-photo freaks and that made her realize
three things: 1) I could (should) be spending a lot more on my hobby, 2) I
had an urgent need for a 15mm lens, and 3) uw-photo is a lot of fun, but
not that easy. There is great potential in these realizations, for instance
I now have a 15 mm lens :-).

I have only got positive things to say about Ocean Trek, Mick and Lynn, and
I can only recommend the competition - the biggest worry was that all the
good food and cake almost interfered with the diving!  END