Sunday, December 11, 2011

Bass & Flinders Point

Windy Point was the original destination but the surf was up and it was way too rough to attempt it. We went around to Oak Park and there was a surf competition on and the water was full of surfers. This obviously made things less than optimal so we headed to Bass & Flinders Point.


First dive, I took Lisa and Andrew who were using their equipment for the first time. I took another two gentlemen who had just met each other and my buddy for the day was Camilla.
Kane gave the dive briefing and we headed in for our first dive

The dive was fairly interesting and I do think this is a great little dive site if you don't set your expectations too high. It never gets deeper than 6 meters so this can disappoint the gauge watchers.
There are some interesting areas with a swim through near the end of the reef. We called this dive the Transgender Groper dive. We saw a huge brown groper that was just starting to turn blue. It was in the process of changing from a female to a male. I accidentally knocked a sea urchin off and the blue/brown groper wasn't sure how to go about it. It took him/her several attempts to eventually get a feed.
The second dive we went to the end of the reef and through the swim through and had a nice Little play with a curious octopus. At first he was scared and thought we were going to eat him, once he realized we were not going to eat him he decided to have a try at eating us. Lots more fun than it sounds :)

Monday, November 21, 2011

Forster Shark Dives - a conglomeration of forgotten

A great weekend in Forester and the summer holiday season was quite evident with 30+ temperatures, and the beaches and restaurants full of tourists. The diving did not seem quite as good as May but the ocean is fickle and luck of the draw may be a bigger factor than time of the year.

Getting ready at Seal Rock
 Blunder number one for the trip was forgetting my wetsuit. I had to hire a 2 piece 7mm  with a 'Joan Collins' off the shoulder number (modelling above) covered by a crutch hugging 1960's James Bond top jacket.
Jane and a Wobbegong (carpet Shark)

Wobbegong from above (perfect camouflage)
 We had two boat dives on the first day. We drove down to Seal Rocks from Forester and picked up the boat from the beach, it took about 40 minutes to drive. We went out to little rock for the first dive but the visibility was only about 4M. We saw a few grey nurse sharks and plenty of Wobbegongs. The Wobby are everywhere and the really deserve the name 'carpet shark' as they literally carpet the whole area.
Port Jackson Shark

Curious Puffer fish
 We had a great night out on Saturday with 10 of us in The Aztec Mexican restaurant. The food was very nice and they had a live band playing that kept us very entertained for the whole evening.
Wobby and PJ best of friends (until dinner time)
Grey Nurse at Seal rocks - Big Rock

Day 2 was a little 'special' and is probably a dive that I will never forget for a very particular reason.
We headed out through the bar from Forester and the boat was almost swamped in a huge wave, but that was just good fun. We went to The Pinnacle but there was rag weed everywhere so we decided to go out to 'Spot A'. There was a 3M swell and everyone was starting to look very green by the time we arrived at the dive site. The DM jumped in and checked out the site and said the current was too strong for us to dive. He went down the anchor line at the front of the boat and his bubbles were surfacing about 10M behind the boat so the current was very strong. A blue water ascent would have seen us needing our safety sausages for sure.
Whilst this was happening at least 2 people threw up, Mexican food, red wine and a 3M swell are not a great combination. We headed back to The Pinnacle and it just seemed that we had been on the boat for too long at this time.
Grey Nurse

Close encounter
 At The Pinnacle the DM jumped in to check out conditions and we started to gear up. Whilst gearing up another 3 people threw up and I started to feel very ordinary. I decided to get in the water as soon as possible. The 3M swell was making conditions difficult on the boat and the feint aroma of bile was starting to fill the air.

I decided to jump in and as I was filling my BCD, just before I stepped off the boat, I realized that my air was off. I quickly asked Jane to turn on my air as I was only just holding everything together at this point. With the air on I leapt into the ocean and started to feel much better. I watched several people throwing up over the side of the boat as it bobbed like a cork in a washing machine.


Eventually everyone got into the water and we decided to descend as quickly as possible because some people were feeling rough on the surface. I deflated my BCD and still stayed on the surface? I duck dived and swam down to 5M but as soon as I stopped swimming I noticed I was returning to the surface. That was when I realised that I had not brought any weight. I kept swimming down and after a few minutes found a large rock that I cuddled like a baby. I was able to continue the dive and spent 40 minutes carrying this large rock around the dive site. We saw a huge Eagle ray just meters away. The visibility was quite poor with al the weed in the water and we did hear that the other group almost bumped into a 3M Grey Nurse shark.
You looking at me?
Great Experience and a lesson learned to trust the marine forecast- When they say 3M swell I suggest doing something other than a boat dive.

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Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Simple rules to improve underwater photography

Here are a few simple rules that will greatly improve underwater pictures.
  1. Try to take the picture looking up at your subject
  2. Try to ensure the natural sunlight is behind you
  3. Fill the picture with your subject
  4. Try to have your subject on the diagonal plane rather than horizontal plane
  5. Use an external strobe or white balance do not use both or neither.
  6. Use a photo editing software to clean up your pics (see this link for more information)
Below are some examples from my photos:

1. Try to Take the picture looking up rather than down on your subject.
The next 2 pictures are not a great example but I think they convey the principle.
Looking down from a 'diver perspective' makes the subject difficult for the camera to see against the background

Looking 'up' at the subject and contrasting the same subject against the water will improve the picture. Not a great example but it conveys the principle.


2. Try to ensure the natural sunlight is behind you it makes a huge difference to the result.
Notice the shadow is in front of the subject: The subject is dark from the camera perspective despite having an external strobe. A lot of the subject detail is lost.

Notice the shadow is behind the subject and the detail of the subject is much more vibrant. The scales are clearly discernible.

3. Fill the picture with your subject - get as close as you can and don't have too many distractions from your subject.
Family of clownish in their anemone but it could be better

I wanted to get closer but he was a very shy little fish. The subject is the focus of the picture with detail of the anemone as background.
Both photos taken of the same subject but the second picture captures the detail of the clown fish and his anemone.
4. Try to have your subject on the diagonal plane rather than horizontal plane
Great subject on the horizontal plane

Picture improved by adjusting the camera angle on the same subject to the diagonal plane

5. Use an external strobe or white balance do not use both or neither i.e. you must use one or the other so if you don't have an external strobe then you must use white balance.
White balance compensates for the loss of red color at depth.
Manual white balance will give the best results but you will need to take something white with you to perform the task at different depths and different visibilities.
Using both external strobe and white balance adds a red hue to the strobe light. The colors appear unnatural

Using external strobe too far away negates its effect. The green hue of the picture is common in incorrectly balanced pictures.
Correct white balance and no flash give improved results

6. Use photo editing software to clean up your pics (see this link for more information).

The only thing that cannot be cleaned up is out of focus pictures.
Try to ensure you are stable when taking a picture.
Always allow the camera time to focus before shooting if you have an auto focus function.

Monday, July 11, 2011

Diving Etiquette

Yesterday whilst taking a group of students through diving equipment cleaning procedure I thought about the etiquette of diving. An open water course will teach all the written rules of diving but what are the unwritten rules? I am not referring to any life threatening errors that people may make but more over the way to behave around other divers in a diving community.


Whilst washing diving equipment there are some important steps to maintain the equipment in correct working order. Soaking the regulators in fresh water for 10 minutes to dissolve any salt, flushing out the BCD bladder with fresh water, drying and storing equipment out of the sunlight, all help to maintain your diving equipment. But what are the rules that help you maintain your diving community? For example washing boots last of all, after everyone else has washed their wetsuit. Not peeing in your wetsuit, or if you do have the decency to wait until last before dipping it in the tub .

Any other ideas for the 'unwritten rules of diving'? I am sure there must be many that seasoned divers take for granted that new divers would be well advised of.

Here are the pictures from this weekend








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Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Minke Whale Expedition

We boarded the SpoilSport on Thursday evening at 6PM after a nice meal with Mike Ball and the other guests.
The ship was very nice and we were heading for a 4 night live aboard adventure into the Coral Sea on the Great Barrier Reef in search of Minke Whales.


















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Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Open Water Course 11 & 12 June

I trained 3 people last weekend but did not get to certify them because JJ needed the certifications.

Somrat, Vijay and Jasmina had all done a corporate DSD and came back to complete their open water certification. It was a wet and miserable weekend but we still had a good time under the water.

Somrat, Vijay, me and Jasmina


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Sunday, June 5, 2011

Photos from Advanced Course 5th June 2011

I met a great group of people this weekend and while we started out with poor conditions for diving on Saturday morning the weekend turned into a very memorable time. There were a few laughs and lessons learned. Denise with her camera,and James with his upside down regs and back to front tank were highlights for me.
It was an awesome weekend with a nice group of people on Bare Island and up in Terrigal on the ex HMAS Adelaide. on Sunday

Here are the Photos from this weekend and the much discussed cuttlefish  "porn" video from Oak Park.



Colin and Denise with Bare Island in the background

James, Kevin, Colin, Denise and Phil ready to Peak our Buoyancy Performance

Denise on the Navigation Adventure dive,

Denise- Where is the camera?

Kevin on the Underwater Navigation dive

James on the underwater navigation dive


Denise after the underwater naturalist dive

Self portrait of Phil

Denise with Bare Island in the background [MI2]

Colin and Kevin after 3 dives

James warm and toasty in his new wetsuit

Denise @ 9M on the ex HMAS Adelaide
Elizabeth joined us for the second day on the Adelaide
Elizabeth @ 9M on the ex HMAS Adelaide

James @ 9M on the ex HMAS Adelaide

Kevin @ 9M on the ex HMAS Adelaide

Here is the video I made of the ex HMAS Adelaide a few weeks ago- visibility was similar


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