It was not the most pleasant dive I've done this year but I made the
supreme effort to crawl out of bed even tho I wanted to lie in and
vegetate ;-)  Did'nt I tell ya my middle name is *lazy-bones* :-))
Once I'd had my umpteenth cuppa to activate myself it was time to squeeze
into my semi-dry suit. Alas, too much good food over the winter period &
not enough exercise caused a bit of a problem at first. Even using the ol'
stocking trick was pushing things to the limit but soon I was as snug as a
mummy. I have the greatest sympathy for Strike with his drysuit woes ..
know how ya feel mate ;-)

Zipping down the freeway I met up with other members of the WA UW camera
club (WAUPS). In its 16th year the annual cleanup is held the 3rd Saturday
of every September. Our designated area was the waters around the
ammunition jetty at Woodman Point in Cockburn Sound. We had around 40
volunteer divers in all from various dive clubs. While non-divers were
collecting debris from the shorelines of our beaches & inland waterways we
braved the chilly waters collecting junk. Ok, while 17 degrees celcius may
not be cold to some of you (especially thinking of John Hauer & Steve
Catron here ;-)) ... to me that is freeeeeeeezing as Ive not dived since my
trip to PNG ended in June where I happily basked in their 27-29 degrees
celcius waters. Heaven on water :-)

It was the first time I had done a dive without camera in hand. Felt really
strange sans camera but I got that warm & fuzzy feeling seeing the end
results being loaded into the trucks to be weighed later. It will be
interesting to hear what this years junk collecting statistics are. I
recall last year more than 6000 tonnes was collected, which organiser Ocean
Conservancy claimed was the world's biggest marine rubbish haul.

A free barbecue was organised for all the volunteers at each designated
rubbish collection spot. Pulling out my fold-up deck chair & warming up a
few drinkies it was not long before my little tum-tum was filled to
capacity with hot-dog sandwiches, dripping in butter .. err .. the diet can
wait for another day ;-)
Viv