the deco stop

Forster Mar 2008

2008-03-12T19:30:00.018+11:00

Another fantastic weekend at Forster last weekend courtesy of Mr Ron Hunter and his ocean going friends...

A special mention to Sandy Hain for this trip as she kindly organised the weekend's accommodation. Now don't get me wrong, the dive lodge is a lovely spot, quite good enough for a place to sleep between fish botheing episodes but it *does* lack that homely feel. Sandy managed to book out accommodation for us in a beatifully kept unit with a balcony overlooking the lake which was ideal for beer and sunsets and beer.

Special thanks also to Tanya who provided a plethora of Shapes for mid morning munchies. They also went down well with the afore-mentioned beer!

Saturday morning was exciting as we were diving at Seal Rocks - a legendary site which I've never yet managed to dive as it takes pretty good weather conditions. Gear on boat we drove down to meet the boat. Weather was absolutely perfect and we managed two dives, one at Big Rock and one at Little Rock (nowhere near Arkansas apparently).

Water temperature was a toasty 24 and the viz was astonishing - easily 30+ metres - as you can see from the photos. Missing from the piccies is the 4ft turtle which was cruising by as we hit the bottom of the line as I was too slow to snap it before it drifted off into the blue.

I kid you not when I say that there must have been in excess of 100 Grey Nurses on Big Rock that day. Big buggers too! You could barely move without bumping into one of them. In fact Col, Sandy and myself all had close encounters...

Ooops! Didn't see you there

Sandy almost gets sat on by a decent sized grey Nurse

On top of the Nurses we had a trio of sleepy but good sized (5ft+) Port Jacksons and the usual large Wobbies.

But it's not all sharks. We had schools of kingfish and jewfish, a couple of numb rays, black rays and a particularly well fed Nudi too.

Sunday saw a double dive at The Pinnacle and Latitude Rock. Viz was still outstanding and these were a couple of relaxing dives. Lattitude in particular is a great little dive with plenty of life, at 12m-15m it's much easier going than some of the deep dives and easy to enjoy at a leisurely pace.

And then it was time to go home.

And then, just when we thought the weekend couldn't get any better, on the boat ride home we ran into a huge number of Dolphins who were looking for some fun. Although don't tell Ron that or he'll hit us up for the Dolphin watching surcharge!!

For more pictures, check out my Picasa page

40th birthday and further sharkiness

2008-02-22T22:47:00.007+11:00

So the 29th of November marked my 40th birthday and the delightful Ange arranged a surprise birthday weekend for me. This included a trip to Nelson Bay - a pretty spot a few hours north of Sydney - along with a bunch of mates. The morning was spent diving with ProDive in and around a Grey Nurse reserve where I snapped the above which I'm really very happy with. Seem to be getting the hang of this underwater photo malarky.

In addition to many Grey Nurses, there was the usual complement of Port Jackson sharks. The ladies went off on a Dolphin watching cruise and saw lots of them but sadly the underwater mob didn't see a one. Still ... a very sharky day which was great!

Visting the sharks at Forster

2007-04-29T18:33:00.000+10:00

This weekend was spent at Forster visiting the Grey Nurses. Whenever I dive here (not nearly often enough) I dive with Ron Hunter at Dive Forster Ron operates a good sized catamaran, is friendly and knowledgeable and also has accommodation at a lodge 10 minutes walk from the shop.

Saturday we did a couple of dives on the wall at Spot A which was excellent with visibility at 40+ metres. This is rather like diving in an aquarium. Only a couple of sharks out to play but still plenty to see.

Sunday morning was a double dive on The Barge which was Shark central. Again, excellent visibility, easily 20m and more sharks than you could shake a stick at. Best estimates are between 40 and 50 but it was hard to tell.

One thing which was sad to see was that a number of sharks were carrying stainless steel fish hooks trailing fishing line. I can certainly empathise with the discomfort this causes but more importantly, it can hinder their ability to eat and lead to them starving or getting serious infections. When Grey Nurse sharks are already an endangered species, it's just irresponsible to be fishing in the (very few) marine conservation areas which exist to protect them. For more evidence of this type of irresponsible behaviour, see Ron Hunter's site.

If you want to do something to help protect these amazing creatures, please visit the Let Lucy Live web site.

More photos are available at Whanau Mackay. Enjoy

Diving Accident

2007-04-14T18:02:00.000+10:00

This is what happens when a fisherman cuts his line leaving a 2mm stainless steel hook tangled around a mooring line. As we made our descent the swell caught the boat, lifting it and the mooring line and pushing this thing into my hand. I couldn't pull it out as it has a nice big barb on the end and I couldn't push it through due to my finger bone being in the way. A three hour wait at the casualty department followed by a local anaesthetic, some tugging by a very overworked doctor, a few nasty tearing noises and it's all fixed. Which means I am now able to give the universal dive signal for "I do not require assistance" like Tash here (one of my students).

Truk Lagoon, October 2005

2005-10-31T18:25:00.000+11:00

These pictures were taken on a diving trip to Truk Lagoon in Chuuk, Micronesia. We dived and stayed with Blue Lagoon who I highly recommend for both facilities and their knowledge of the sites, wrecks and history.

The wrecks were part of a Japanses supply fleet sunk during WWII by aircraft from a US Carrier group as part of an operation codenamed Hailstone on Feb. 17 and 18, 1944.

Torpedo hole in the hull of the Heian Maru

Nothing but blue...

Truk Lagoon, October 2005

2005-10-31T18:18:00.000+11:00

The wheelhouse of the Fujikawa Maru

Soft Coral

Truk Lagoon, October 2005

2005-10-31T18:10:00.000+11:00

Sunset over Truk Lagoon, no photo reprocessing involved, it really is this good.

The view from our room

Deco Stop Chaos

Anenome up close and personal

Diving Vanuatu

2003-07-31T15:48:00.000+10:00

These pictures were taken on a dive trip to Vanuatu, principally to dive the USS President Coolidge, a US troop ship which sank there in WWII after hitting a 'friendly' mine. Possibly the most awesome dive trip I'd been on...until Truk, but that's another story :)

A mermaid.

Portholes

View from inside the wreck