Finally the WWW has a dive report to share!! :-)
Let me set the scene. I have not dived since March with Strike (and if
Strike was brutally honest I was a disaster!!:-)) I have had a friend over
from England who was super eager to go diving in OZ. He has not done
his course. I pointed him in the direction of doing a course, whilst he
was doing this, I would tag along and do a refresher. Then if we had
time to go out diving we would go with the local dive shop, letting them
know that we were inexperienced. I thought this was a reasonable
idea?? I felt the most comfortable with doing it this way.
This, so called friend - Mark, kept asking me why don't we just go out
anyway? Why can't I (he) just use the gear in the shallow? Why not?
Why can't we? Nothing will happen it will only be in the shallow. (Go
back to England) I kept saying NO!! NO!! NO!! THERE ARE REAL
DANGERS INVOLVED AND MY GEAR IS NOT GOING TO HELP YOU KILL
YOURSELF!!
Anyway we got to Port Stephens I kept telling him he needed four full
days to get his qualification before he could go diving (we arrive Sunday
and were due to go home on Tuesday morning - you do the math it
wasn't going to happen). Anyway I got dragged in to the dive shop and
blow me over they do an $80 introductory dive, see if you like it kind of
thing. Just arrive one hour prior to departure and will tell you everything
you need to know then we will jump in the sea and go. I got chills
thinking about it!! (I would like to know what you think about these intro
dives).
Well we got to the dive shop 2 hours early. I got my tank filled, he had a
five minute this is what to do. We went to the dive site, got ready, walk
in and started. Now while the instructor was very good and giving Mark
a few skills ( inflate and deflate BCD) all of 10 mins if that, I sat
underwater on a rock and looked at the fish.
We started the dive Mark, the instructor, myself and two other gentlemen
(who were divers but were tagging along as they didn't know the area).
I ended up spending more time with the other guys than Mark and the
instructor although always in seeing distance of each other. I found a
lone pipe fish sitting in the middle of nowhere, a moray eel and a large
red cod sharing a rock hole, another red cod, baby lion fish, wobbegong,
flat head, stingray, huge school of bream (Dad was go annoyed at the
size and number of them when he had spent a solid week fishing and
not caught a thing!!), yellow tails, gropers and nudibranch. Also cuttlefish
- I have never seen so many cuttlefish is my life, from 10cm to about
30cm much smaller that anywhere else and not brightly coloured. The
cuttlefish were a green grey in colour and went white if some idiot go in
there space. I suppose I saw about 50 or so cuttlefish is it breeding
time? Unfortunately no weedy sea dragons!! (Strike reef must be the
place to go!!:-)
The dive went to about 12m for about 60mins, the water temp was 17C.
I was impresses that I got in.
The day before we went dining Mark went snorkelling and I went
swimming only to have two dolphins come within 2 metre of us - that
was amazing. Though I must saying when I only saw the fins appearing
I was praying it was dolphins and not something else!!
Strike, I think I'll be coming for another dive with you guys soon. I had
more weight on me so I didn't flip upside down and my tank didn't slip
about, it was great. Also I really would like to congratulate you on your
pre dive talk - there was nothing up there just follow me by the
instructor.
Thanks,
Bec.
|
