Rapid Bay dive trip - Days 2,3,4

The wind eased overnight so it was just a matter of waiting for the water to clear up a bit. We checked the jetty first thing but the swell was still up and vis about 1/2m.
Checked again in the afternoon and conditions had just improved enough to jump in. Swell was still enough to make entry a little tricky with a bulky camera setup but vis had improved to 3m. Lucky we did dive because this would be our only break in the weather for the whole 4 days.

The trip from the dirt carpark to the entry platform is much easier with trolleys. It's shorter than it used to be walking right out to the end of the old pier and could be done without trolleys if you don't have heavy camera gear. We locked the trolleys and camera bag to the pier railings with a bike cable lock, but the fishos seemed friendly enough. It gets very crowded on weekends.

From the entry platform a row of metal stakes lead west straight across to the old pier in about 6m. Another row heads out north west toward the end of the old pier then does a dog-leg back to meet the main pier. The stakes must be about 5m apart, we couldn't see from one to the next.
The area between the two rows of stakes is called Leafy Gardens, there are 5 resident leafies here.

Unfortunately a recent head cold had left me with an unsuspected clogged up frontal sinus. Below 5m I was getting a bad headache above my right eye. This was the first time ever for me, very frustrating. I then spotted 2 leafy sea dragons down at 6m but was unable to get down to photograph them. I flashed Bruce with my strobes and there was much rejoicing, although he wondered why I wasn't down there shooting. I think he interpreted my headache signals as clenched fist type celebrations.

Eventually I managed to get down the extra 1m by going very slowly, or it might have been the adrenaline masking the pain, and started shooting dragons. What an experience, they are the most bizarre and beautiful creatures. They swim very slowly rocking up and down, often swimming in unison with a mate. In fact the rocking motion is how I spotted them initially, and they are slightly brighter yellow than the weed.

We stayed down for over an hour finding one more seadragon, a few big spider crabs and a little cuttle.
While we were down the wind and swell had increased making the exit a little too exciting but nothing could dampen the exhilaration of finding these spectacular and rare seadragons. Leafies are only found in a limited stretch of southern Australia, nowhere else in the world.

We were looking forward to subsequent dives with better conditions but sadly the wind picked up and prevented any more diving over the next 2 days. We could have headed over to Victor Harbour and calmer water but the vis wouldn't have been any better.

Here's a 4 min video of the trip

One issue with diving at Rapid Bay is that there are no dive shops on the Fleurieu Peninsula. The closest dive shop is Southern Diving 70min drive north at Christies Beach. All the closer dive shops have closed down. So we took 3 tanks each and intended to do the 2 1/2 hr round trip for fills after dive 3. Maybe next time.

On our last walk along the jetty we came across an instructor and student from NB Scuba in McLaren Vale. He told us these were the worst conditions he'd seen in 6 months! He also said he has a compressor at home and does fills and is closer than Christies Beach. Good to know.
It was interesting to see the dive instructors wearing shark shields, maybe it's a workplace safety requirement.

More underwater and kite aerial photos here

Rapid Bay dive trip - Day 1

Bruce T and I are in Second Valley, South Australia for a 4 day leafy seadragon photo trip.

Thu 21st March 2013

Got bogged trying to drive out of Randalsea, our holiday rental house at Second Valley. Had to enlist a passing 4WD to tow us out. The drive is very steep, short and dusty. Too steep for a wagon loaded with dive gear.

Wild weather arrived overnight Storm force NW wind, rain, lightning the works.

Diving not possible in 4m swells and it will take a while to clear up. Bad start.

Merimbula Divers Lodge - Eden Tugs

After Jervis Bay we headed down to Merimbula (4hrs) to stay at the Diver's Lodge and dive the Eden Tugs. The Tasman Hauler and Henry Bolte tugs were sunk as artificial reefs back in the mid 1980's in 25 to 30m. The Tasman Hauler is intact while the Henry Bolte has collapsed but boasts more fish life. They're only a 5min boat ride from Eden wharf and about 150m apart.

The diver's lodge has 3 large two bedroom apartments for $29/person, 4 bunks per room. Absolute luxury as dive lodges go, and walking distance to great restaurants and the main shopping drag. We've stayed there twice and always had an apartment to ourselves. Excellent washing and gear storage facilities are provided.

Dive time was 8.30 at the Eden wharf, 20min drive, where we geared up with a Pro Dive mob from Sydney. They were also staying at the diver's lodge and doing a wreck course. The dive boat is a Niiad RIB with just enough space for 12 divers and 2 crew. It's a fast narrow boat that has no storage space for cameras, have to be very vigilant to protect cameras in the pre dive melee.

The vis was 15 to 20m allowing for great wide angle shots. A big school of 60cm kingfish provided thrills on the Henry Bolte. Much better than the 5m green snot we had last visit.

First dive was on the Tasman Hauler then back to Eden for the surface interval, then back out to the Henry Bolte.

$120 for the double dive with your own gear.

Tug dive photos here

For this trip I really wanted to concentrate on wide angle and video. I used my Nikon D80 in Ikelite with 2 Inon Z220 strobes all on manual and Sigma 15mm fisheye, and Virg's Panasonic Lumix LX3 in my old Coolpix 5000 Ikelite housing with a UK Light Cannon HID torch for video.

I took Virg's Macbook and edited video as the trip progressed. This gave me something to do during down time and show off to the non photographers each night.

Rich and I used drysuits, highly recommended, and although the water temp was 20c in JB and 18c on the Tugs, it made the between dive times warm and comfortable. Wetsuit divers shivered.

Next time I'll take my ali backplate rather than heavier SS just for easier handling out of the water, and use an occy neck sling or velcro retainer rather than the useless mouthpece plug.

Jervis Bay - Ocean Trek 5 day trip

Spent the last 10 days on a diving road trip to Jervis Bay and Merimbula.

Buddy Rich Misquitta and I drove from Geelong to Goulburn (8hrs) on the first day, staying at the Alpine Heritage Motel, $85 budget twin room, right next door to the down market Carlton Hotel. The $10 steaks were excellent but the 3 vomiting Canberra teenagers (also our motel neighbours) were not.

Next morning we drove (2 hrs) down the steep windy road to Huskisson staying at the peaceful Jervis Bay Caravan Park (Bushmans Cabin $80, no ensuite). It's a few ks outside Husky on the river and very pleasant. We could leave our car there for the 5 days of the Ocean Trek live-aboard dive trip. The only alternative is to leave your car in the council car park next to the bottle shop. Apparently it's quite safe but Rich wasn't too keen with his new Sportiva. Dinner was at the local RSL. Large meals served extremely fast, kitchen closes at 8pm.

8.30 Monday morning saw us waiting with all our luggage on the Husky wharf. The other Ocean Trek passengers slowly assembled. First Joy from Eden arrived then a minivan with the mob from Whyalla SA pulled up, making 10 divers and 1 non diver.

Eventually a wild haired seafarer in a small dinghy tied up to the wharf and introduced himself as Mick. 3 trips in his precariously overloaded tender saw us all on Ocean Trek, our home for the next 5 days.

Ocean Trek is a big old 18m catamaran with beds for 23. Many years ago Lee Marvin was a guest on Marlin fishing expeditions. Now it's perfectly setup as a diving liveaboard.

Captain Mick is also the director of entertainment, Lyn runs the diving and Bob is the chef. They make a great team and obviously enjoy it. Dive videos enthusiastically narrated by Mick, stories of their many dive adventures and a game of "Million Dollar Riff" using Mick's iPod kept us entertained during the evening meals.

Speaking of meals, Bob did a magnificent job. I have done a Taka trip on the GBR and the food didn't come close to Bob's efforts. Home cooked, fresh ingredients, amazing variety and nutritionally perfect for a strenuous dive trip. Lasagne, fettucini marinara, roast beef and veggies, Tom Yum soup, 3 course every night with creative desserts, with no course ever repeated. Hot breakfasts, post dive snacks and fruit always available. Just superb.

Lyn's dive operation was thorough, well run and safety conscious. Any diving incidents were dealt with strictly and professionally. Some of the problems experienced were unplanned and missed deco (no diving for 24hrs), possible saltwater aspiration on 2 consecutive dives, headaches, , dehydration (me), earaches, nose bleeds and some sea sickness. All survived and left the boat smiling.

Each day 4 dives were planned with 2 on the last day making 18 in all. Breakfast at 8.00am was followed by the first dive around 9.30, another at 11.30, lunch then 2hrs snoozy time, arvo dive around 3.30 and night dive at 6.00.

Only 1 diver managed to do the full 18 dives, but he had a pit crew non diving partner, who just happened to be a part time masseuse, lucky bugger!

Weather was not kind to us for the first 2 days with rain, wind and swell, but inside the bay behind Bowen Island there are excellent sheltered sites.
Eventually the weather improved allowing us to move outside the south head. Better vis, big schools of fish and a sea cave made these sites memorable. I have no interest in fresh water cave diving but these sea caves and splits are my favourite dive sites.

Each night we moved inside to anchor off Murray's beach. We also did a brilliant night dive here filming a baby PJ shark mauling a scallop, 3 species of seapen and a walking gurnard in full display.

We also dived around the Docks, Split cave (another fave) and Point Perpendicular. The marine life of Jervis Bay is really spectacular. Swirling bait balls, squadrons of squid, bow riding dolphins, wobbegong and Port Jackson sharks, sea eagles, Navy ships, planes and parachute drops kept the photographers busy. Also saw a very long water spout (mini tornado) reaching up hundreds of meters to the clouds.

Most sites were dominated by big boulders and urchins barrens with big clusters of stalked ascidians and striking sponges remaining. But the amazing abundance of fish and spectacular walls, splits and caves make Jervis Bay the brilliant dive destination it is.

For all this we paid a little over $150/day. You could barely sleep and eat for that without diving at all. Amazing diving, amazing value and I will return.

Can't think of any negatives really, unless it's Mick's very daggy sense of humour and music tastes, but they can easily be forgiven.

10 min trip video here
Dive photos here

TAKA Great Barrier Reef trip

Just returned from 5 day live-aboard trip to the Ribbon reefs and Osprey reef off north Queensland on TAKA.

This was my first venture into tropical and live-aboard diving in 10 yrs and 600 dives! In the past I have always preferred to spend money on scuba and camera gear.

Used the 15mm fisheye and 60mm macro. Started with 2 strobes then switched to 1 to make it a bit easier. Would have been better to have a serious photographer buddy.

Loved the diving, 27c and up to 40m vis in the water, mind-blowing marine life and very well run dive deck.
Wouldn't hesitate to do it again.

Things they could improve on the boat are:
Food - German chef 's last trip after only 3 weeks. Great breakfast and salads but the dinners were like poor quality pub food. Grey/bleeding meat and deep fried crumbed things.
Water urn and brewed coffee was left empty too often.
Noise level in the lounge between dives was annoying. Chef's cd player and lounge cd player competing!

However these are just minor things, the boat and crew were very good. 29 divers and about 8 crew.
The video pro Ben from Scubapix did a brilliant job of the DVD.

Photo set here and my video of onboard life here.

Technical issues on the Tassie trip

Had no problems with the D80 and my lens choices were perfect. Just the 60mm macro and 15mm fisheye.
But how to store and backup 10 days worth of images. I considered buying more SD cards, an image storage device or an iPod/camera connector but found that basic laptops are so cheap these days that there was the obvious solution.
I bought an HP Compaq C710 for $750 and with the current $150 HP cashback that made it $600. It only has 512 RAM but that was fine for saving images and running Photoshop Elements 2.0. The laptop became hot property after each dive as everyone gathered round to view images.

I found Vista to be a very nice, almost Mac like OS. This PC wont be connected to the net. On return I slotted in 2GB RAM for $130 and it runs better than my iMac 20" G5 now.

Now here's a list of gear problems on the trip:
Virg's Aladin Sport wrist computer went "ERR" - meaning Trevor had to borrow one from the dive shop.
Leaking drysuit chest valve - got wet thermal tshirt and jocks every dive. Drysuit needs valve overhaul.
Leaking Inon Z220 strobe socket - now realize this has been going on for a while so the strobe is getting the socket replaced at Sea Optics for $88 plus labour
Port o-ring sucked into the housing - after opening the rear door on the boat to switch back to autofocus. Glad I saw this as it would have meant a severe flood. So didn't take the camera in for this dive at Waterfall Bay split and enjoyed it so much I called this my best dive ever.

Eaglehawk Neck - Tasman Peninsula

After Bicheno we traveled down the east coast to Eaglehawk Neck dive centre to link up with the taxonomists.

The diving here was on spectacular walls beneath towering cliffs and in enormous caves and splits. Big swells and surge are the norm and sites had to be carefully selected by Mick the skipper.

We found numerous new nudis, hydroids and pycnos and had a wonderful 6 days.

The accomodation was a bit cramped and basic with a big group but the spectacular diving made up for it. The dive lodge needs more cupboards and benches and that Tongtel TV needs to be dumped. Oh, and the electricals need an upgrade to stop the regular circuit breaks whenever the fridge started up.

Even though we were only 1hr from Hobart there was no Optus or 3 mobile coverage but Telstra mobile still worked.

Photos here.

Bicheno Tasmania

Well I'm finally getting organized and have some images to show.
Just from Bicheno at this stage, Eaglehawk Neck to come.

Bicheno is a small fishing village on Tasmania's mid east coast with spectacular rocky coastline and kelp covered boulders underwater.

Water temp was around 14c and the weather was a perfect 20c most days with cool nights. We were woken nightly by noisy male fairy penguins returning to the nests, some of which were in our front garden.

Saw mother and calf humpback whales swimming only a few hundred meters off the beach.

Sometimes we were diving in a thick soup of salps and comb jellies.

Photos here.

Back from Tasmania trip

Just returned on the ferry this morning from 10 days diving in Tasmania.

We split the trip into 4 days at Bicheno, just myself, Trevor Mc and Richard M,

then another 6 days on the Tasman Peninsula at Eaglehawk Neck Dive linking up with Jan Watson (hydroid taxonomist), Bob Burn (nudibranch taxonomist) and Dave Staples (pycnogonid taxonomist).

Right now I'm tired to the core, have no clean clothes and have to go to work in about an hour so that's it until I can sort out some images.