Four open water divers became students again this weekend to undertake the Advanced Open Water Course with Abyss Scuba Diving. This time there would be no mask floods. This was about learning different types of diving and increasing their in-water skills.
Patrick, Corinna, Petra and Jonathon were going to complete five adventure dives during the course after having completed all of their theory online. The first day took us out to Oak Park where Sydney put on an awesome day .
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| Petra hovering |
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| Patrick hovering |
First adventure dive was Peak Performance Buoyancy. After a dive briefing we headed out with our 3 submersible rings for the course. We completed a surface buoyancy check and removed more weight from the divers than I could safely carry (I think we removed about 18lb in total), so I put some on the sand to take back after the dive. We descended and completed a fin pivot into a hover, before having a swim around: A number of Blue Gropers came to see what we were up to and stayed with us for the duration of the dive. They are always so curious as to what we are up to. After a lot of practice hovering again we had some fun swimming through the rings at different depths. I think everyone got a lot from this dive and the skills learned here were practiced throughout the weekend. Patrick particularly liked hovering upside down and practiced it on every dive.
Second adventure dive was Underwater Navigation: After an on-land compass usage refresher, a good discussion about natural navigation and a practice of our navigation patterns for the dive, we went for our second dive. The visibility was excellent at Oak Park and it probably made this course a bit easier because we could see 20m. Everyone learned how many kick cycles they need to travel 30m and approximately how long it takes them to travel that distance. I was really impressed with everyone's square navigation. There was time on this dive for playing with the Blue Groper again, who wouldn't leave us alone, and practicing our hovering techniques.
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| ball of catfish |
Last adventure dive for Day One was the Underwater Naturalist dive: The students had to identify 2 plants, 4 invertebrates and 5 vertebrates. This was easier than it sounds and I only caught one person out with the sponge, which is an invertebrate animal but most people think it is a plant. This was a great dive and we saw so much. We saw the biggest ball of cat fish, they were about 2m long. Corinna has a knack for spotting Moray Eels which she displayed magnificently on this dive. Sam joined us and took plenty of photos.
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| Cuttlefish on the Underwater Naturalist dive |
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| Sam capturing the kodak moment |
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| One of the many vertebrates that we found |
Day Two had 2 adventure dives in Sydney Harbour, Deep and Wreck. We met at Camp Cove at about 9:45am and geared up before waiting to be picked up by our boat for the day. The boat arrived for us at 10:15am so we swam out and headed out to our deep dive for the day on the wreck of the Royal Shepherd.
We descended the anchor line and tied my reel off at the bottom of the anchor. We headed in the direction that the anchor had been dragging in the sand and found the wreck about 20m from the anchor.
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| Royal Shepherd in better condition |
On Monday 14 July 1890 at 11.15 pm the SS
Hesketh, a heavily laden collier heading into Sydney Harbour, collided with the
Royal Shepherd and she sank within 10 minutes, luckily no lives were lost.
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| Petra and Jonathon at the propeller of the Royal Shepherd |
We explored the propeller, flywheel and boiler of the old steamer. We made note of some changes in colour at depth and had a bit of fun with an egg. There was a wobbegong sitting in the flywheel and he blended in very well with his surrounds. We ascended and hung on the anchor line for our safety stop before surfacing.
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| Corinna near the propeller of the Royal Shepherd |
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| Corinna at the fly-wheel of the Royal Shepherd |
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| Patrick at the boiler of the Royal Shepherd |
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| Corinna at the boiler of the Royal Shepherd |
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| Map of the Centurion - Courtesy of NSW Heritage Office |
We had donuts, tea, soup, biscuits and jellies for lunch before heading over to our second dive for the day, the wreck of the Centurion. We descended the line and everyone was now excellent at maintaining good buoyancy and we all hovered around the wreck like blowflies, rather than dragging along the bottom kicking up sand. Everyone identified various hazards around the wreck with our distinctive nose wave signal and we read the plaque and fed the fish while we were down there.
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| The plaque 18m below the surface on the wreck of the Centurion |
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| Jonathon on the wreck of the Centurion |
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| Moray Eel on the Centurion |
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| Sergeant Baker got very excited when we fed the fish with Snappy Tom |
We ascended the anchor line and performed our safety stop before returning to camp cove with 4 newly certified Advanced Divers. Well done!
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Second adventure dive was Underwater Navigation: After an on-land compass usage refresher, a good discussion about natural navigation and a practice of our navigation patterns for the dive, we went for our second dive. The visibility was excellent at Oak Park and it probably made this course a bit easier because we could see 20m. Everyone learned how many kick cycles they need to travel 30m and approximately how long it takes them to travel that distance. I was really impressed with everyone's square navigation. There was time on this dive for playing with the Blue Groper again, who wouldn't leave us alone, and practicing our hovering techniques.
