Shark Island Cronulla

Jane with a Hapkido T-Shirt on

This is an OK dive site but the logistics of getting there on a pleasant Saturday morning, with a group of 12 other divers, are challenging. There is no parking, unless you are very lucky and get one of the residents spots. We ended up 3 blocks back from the beach and had about an 800m walk to the Ocean before we started the descent to the beach.
The descent to the beach is challenging but not impossible, it reminds me of the challenges of getting down to Shiprock, although there is no rope here.

Underwater Hapkido - turning swim fall

Once down to the beach there is a moderate surface swim before you get to dive, just in case you hadn't had enough exercise getting there. The surface swim is about 150 -200 M to get to the island, but you can descend before then once you get to the kelp and rocks.

Moray Eel

We headed North and found a few nice things. We saw a Blue Grouper but he quickly disappeared and seemed very shy. I guess they are not used to divers in this area. There seemed to be a lot of stainless steel railing in the water? I'm not sure if at some time they had a fence around the small island or if it has been used as a dumping ground for unwanted railing? Only real photo opportunities came from a moray eel and this Eastern Fiddler Ray.

Eastern Fiddler Ray

Eastern Fiddler Ray

After surfacing we had a large surface swim back to the beach before climbing the rocks and heading off on our 800M walk to change our tanks.
After a very nice lunch on the beach we went for a second dive. After descending we were surprised by a very timid turtle. He must have been startled by the divers ahead of us and swam straight past us in his haste to retreat. By the time I got the camera fired up he was gone so no pictures.

Jane clinging onto a rock in the shallows

Jane and I are wearing Hapkido T-shirts for our club competition to get a photo with a T-shirt on in an unusual place. We stopped in the shallows and Jane was too buoyant so she could not get a photo of me. Here is one of her clinging onto a rock.

Life under a rock

I decided to grab a rock to give her a bit of extra weight and there were hundreds of little spidery starfish underneath. The wrasse came in and fed of most of them but I got a pic of this large one before putting the rock back where it was.
I decided to abandon the idea of getting a photo of me with my T-shirt on, and we headed West across the sand and back to the beach. It is nice to practice underwater navigation skills on a new dive site.

All up an OK dive site, but the logistics of getting there with a large group, make this a tick in the box dive for me and I won't be in too much of a hurry to return to be honest.

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