Oak Park

Oak Park put on its usual magnificence and I had the pleasure to dive with 2 different buddies here.

How good is this place? I am proud to say that this is where I live- pretty special :)

First dive was with a seasoned diver "Richard": We spent almost 60 minutes went out to the cave and saw a few blue groupers, cuttlefish and a bull Ray.

The second dive was with "Rob", who had had a disappointing first dive with a buddy that lasted 20 minutes on a 10L tank. We went out to the cave and a bit beyond. We saw a few Crested Horn Sharks out beyond the cave and the same blue groupers and cuttlefish as on the first dive. Just over the hour for the second dive (61 mins). I was on a 8L tank and still had 80 bar left when we surfaced. I do enjoy social dives and seem to have much better air consumption when I am not concerned for anyone else. Also I think when I am looking after other people I never really get the chance to see how long my air will last as I normally surface before my computer signals the 110 bar turnaround alarm

2 Great dives - I reqally do enjoy Oak Park, it is my favourite dive site in Sydney and rarely dissapoints.

We found this guy a few meters off the shore near the swimming pool. This was before we had even descended on our dive,

Oak Park

I went out to Oak Park, south of Cronulla this weekend. It is my favorite dive site in Sydney and there is always something interesting happening out here.

My buddy was Tim and he helped my make my latest short Epic: Tim & The Titans of Oak Park

I seem to be getting good on my air consumption as the first dive was 1 hour 6 minutes and I still surfaced with 105 bar in the tank. I probably could have stayed down another 25 minutes or so. I was using the 10 litre tanks and I usually only dive with the 7 litre tanks, but as this was a social dive I took the bigger tank.

The visibility closed down a bit on the second dive as it was low tide. The first dive visibility was about 5-6M and the second dive down to 3-4M.

I do like Oak Park and would recommend it to anyone who has never dived there or anyone who is looking for a good shallow dive site on Sydney's doorstep. Max depth 10M.

351+

The Leap

I went diving at The Leap and The Steps in Kurnell National Park on Saturday. Both dives were magical and the second dive reminded me why I love diving.

We saw 3 different species of shark (Wobby, PJ and Crested Horn). We were accompanied most of the time by big Eastern Blue Groupers. We had some fun with cutlefish, saw squid and Weedy Sea Dragons and we found a large Sea Turtle (I think it was a Loggerhead)

I had some fun with a friend making a film short about the leap. Here it is if your interested...

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.

305+

Bare Island Advanced Course

3 dives on Bare Islands West side in 2M viz. Peak Performance buoyancy, Underwater Navigation and Underwater Naturalist.
Poor viz means no pics- didn't seem worth it on the day. Winston, Elena, Michael, Jasmine, Donna, Grace and Craig were the students. Johny was DM con-ed.

303+

Open Water- Camp Cove

Brett and I had 6 great open water students this weekend with a murky dive at Bass & Flinders on Saturday followed by a magnificent day at Camp Cove on Sunday.

Maria, Dimitri and me

With all the rain of recent weeks (flooding in NSW) he water clarity was less than optimal. We still managed to have a great dive at Bass & Flinders on Saturday focusing on the small stuff. We found Gus the big grouper (or should I say he found us) and we had a brief interaction with him. We also saw a Moray Eel, cuttlefish, goat fish and lots of stripies. There were a few curious Bream in the water too but I think they were lured by the fishermen in the rocks and their burley.

Blake, Dave,Jess, Brett and Christian

Sunday we had 3 dives at Camp Cove and Sydney put on a magnificent end of Summer day for us. The water had cleaned up considerably as well and we had 6-8M viz.

300+

1/2 OW course + Voodoo + Clean Up Australia Day

I did 1/2 an open water course with Kevin and Yinjang (who could not swim)

 Next day I got pulled off the OW course to go DM at Voodoo. The shore dive numbers are really swelling up and Voodoo is a big draw card.

This week I went onto clean up Australia day with the Commonwealth Bank staff as a safety support person. Lots of fun and a nice group of people.

I went for a 50 minute dive with Nelson and Mark around Chowder Bay, which was a lot cleaner than we expected.

296+