Thanks Bird for the report. I stole it for my web page.
It was THAT good!

I have been running behind on the email thing partially
because we've had such fun dives mixed with other "land"
fun in Sydney.

Anyway, thanks to all who attended the dive and the
party. It was great fun to connect with the greater
diving community in such a solid way! Thanks to family
Strike for being so gracious.

The Strike's Reef dive was a fun group activity. The
best part for me was meeting the people. The best part
for Vicky was that when she woke up and saw that the
weather was poor, she knew she had other divers waiting
to baby-sit me, and she could stay in bed.
We ended up with something like 8-10 divers in our group.
I was lucky to have Catt as my buddy. Thanks Catt

The dive itself (at Shelly Beach) had low vis most of
the way. We saw a "wobbee", a sting ray, and then we
started to look for nudibranchs. I was having a fine
time, none the less. But, what made my dive was when
Strike found a seahorse. It was my first. I've waited a
long time for this, and I was very pleased to be able to
finally use all those seahorse stickers I'd collected
over the years.
(We have a rule that you can't place a sticker of a
critter you haven't seen in the wild.)

On Sunday we had a much clearer dive situation. We took
a boat to Magic Point.
Some time ago we though we'd started our dives most of
the ways imaginable. Not so! For this dive you get to
swim out to the boat with all your gear. Then you get to
swim back to shore to get your second tank. "What? We
thought. Well it worked, anyway. It was a nice warm up
for the dive. We did see 10 or so Grey Nurse Sharks,
Lionfish, kelp critters, and - finally - two Weedy Sea
Dragons! Yum. (No, we didn't eat them.)
Photos at www.divewell.org this time.
"Scubaroos" was a nice boat run by a Frenchman named
Eve. He had to drive the boat for some distance for our
dive. Hence the swim - we didn't meet him at his dock.
We met him near the dive site. I'm running out of time
now, so gotta go.
See ye later.
Thanks again for last Saturday.
John

------------------------------

Date:    Sun, 18 Mar 2001 18:09:53 -0800
From:    =?iso-8859-1?q?John=20Bird?= <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Saturday Dive Report with the Hauer's

Saturday afternoon at Strike's Reef proved to be an afternoon of
exquisitely refined elegance as the Hauer's graced us with their
presence and recited tales of their travels.

A gracious afternoon of light refreshements followed, including
superb continental cuisine served up by Mssr. Strike (on the
gas-fired appliance) and his lovely wife, Sylvia.

snip...