A poor turnout at Shelly Beach yesterday morning!

Strike, Birdo, Julian and Ralf all failed to show, either through other
commitments, or because they were put off by a few mild zephyrs and some
wavelets on the water the day before! <grin>

Well, I failed to find a accomodating and literate young lady to pursue
Strike's alternative suggestion for occupying the morning, <wink> so I
thought I'd better prove how ruff and ruggid us Brits really are by going
diving anyway.

Other Saturday morning regulars Dave, Gary and Jonathan hit the water before
us, and came out saying conditions down at 'Dragon Patches' - the spot we
often find Weedy Seadragons - were 'Orrible!', so my group, with Adrian
(Manly DM) and two (even more than me) newbies (not C, and certainly not O),
Gary and Liz, went diving down the other side of the bay.

Max depth 6.9m, time 44 min.

Away from the really murky edge of the beach, conditions picked up a bit,
with viz varying between two and four metres and a healthy surge.  Luvverly!
Adrian borrowed my F*rce Fins, I borrowed his Twin Jets (See later).  A
couple of times on the way out, Gary and myself got separated from Adrian
and Liz in the murk, but I managed to find them again before a minute was up
(looking the wrong way - doh!), so on the way back I told Adrian I'd take
Gary back on my own.

Fishy things on this dive included Blue Grouper, not as friendly as the
larger ones on the other side of the bay (sorry, I just can't bring myself
to use the Aussie spelling - besides, we grope them more than they grope
us!), an unusually large scorpionfish for Sydney, Leatherjackets,
Seargent-Majors, and lots and lots of other small fishies I'd need to ask an
expert about lurking among the seaweed as it surged back and forth.

And a resonably new bicycle, with a couple of diving weights tied round it -
is the dive centre trying to create a new local wreck dive? :-?

Adrians verdict on my F*rce Fins - 'They're not crap - better than Bio-fins,
but not as good as my Twin Jets!'

My opinion on Twin Jets - not as effortless to use as F*rce Fins when just
cruising along, but definitely possessing more top end power for those
surge/current situations.

Coffee and Tim Tams can be taken as read!

Cheers,
Huw

--
Travel Tales: http://www.huwporter.com
-----------------------------------------------
FREE! The World's Best Email Address @email.com
Reserve your name now at http://www.email.com