The Leap and emergency services 20th Februay 2010

The surf conditions were a bit rougher than usual for this dive as you may be able to see from my video below. Before the dive the 2 DM's, Marlin and Richard briefed the group and we split into 3 groups. We were in the more experienced group and entered first as it was most likely we would have the longest bottom time. Richard took a group of 3 confident divers, new to this site, and Marlin took a group of 6 complete novices, who were just certified this week.

My buddy was Brendan, Mihn and Jason were the other buddy pair in our group of experienced divers. We descended and the visibility was poor with only 2-3 meters in some places. The dive itself was relatively uneventful but we did surface about 100M West of the steps and had to swim back to the exit.

The exit was very scary and we aborted our first attempt as a set hit us just as we got near the rocks and we found ourselves in a 2M swell of white water at that point I called an abort. Brendan was a bit shook up so we swam out to deeper water and composed ourselves. I suggested we would make one more attempt to get in and then we would have to swim around to the Monument beach. Anyway we got in comparatively easy the second time as the swell was much calmer on this attempt, timing was important.
I realized that we would have trouble getting the beginners in here so we secured our gear and got ready to guide and assist the other divers to exit the water. Minh and Jason got in relatively easy with our help as we secured them and kept an eye on the incoming surf, directing them when to hold on and when to crawl.

The dive itself was pretty uneventful and the visibility was poor

Richard and his group of 3 surfaced a long way from the exit to the East which was strange as we had overshot to the West. With 4 divers on the shore we got them in but it was quite hairy at times although no-one was injured.

We kept a look out for Marlin and her 5 novice divers but after 20 minutes of no sign we knew something had not gone to plan. Richard and Jason went around to the Leap to see if they could see them and Mihn and I waited at the Steps. We spotted 2 divers on the rocks to the East scrambling through the surf. We went down and helped them climb up at the bottom of the steps, about 150M East of the planned exit point. They were a bit shaken but not hurt. They said that the rest of the group had been having difficulty descending on their dive so they had left them. They also said that the current had forced them to the East and they could not swim against the current so they had to exit where they did. The current had obviously changed a lot earlier than predicted. High tide was 1PM but at 11:45am we had what appeared to be a strong current heading out to the West? In the worsening conditions we knew that there are no safe exits West of the Steps.

Mihn and I realised that the other group were in trouble, if the current had changed then they would be unable to exit at the Leap and the conditions were getting worse. We grabbed our mask and fins and headed around to the Leap. We met Marlin at the top of the Leap and she was visibly shaken, she had some blood on her face and she asked us if we knew anyone who had a boat. We established that we did not have access to any waterdraft in the immediate vicinity and went down to the water. We established that no one was in immediate danger and they were stuck as a group in the ocean with no possible exit. They seemed cheerful enough and no one looked to be panicking or stressed.. Richard and Jason had managed to get Marlin out on the rocks at the Leap. We could tell that it wasn't a pleasant experience and Jason had ended up falling in with the other divers and now he was out there with them without fins or a BCD. Marlin had obviously had a fairly rough exit on the rocks and did not want to attempt to get any of the novices out the same way.

Marlin called the shop and asked for advice, in the mean time Richard had called the Emergency Services (EMS) from a rock fisherman's phone. The shop advised to try to get a rope and pull them around to the Steps but the conditions were getting worse and even the Steps would have been risky in these conditions.. The EMS called back to the rock fisherman's phone several times to assess the urgency of the situation. There was no immediate danger but they had no means of exit and they were drifting towards the East (out to sea) despite swimming towards the West. After about 15 minutes the Police rescue boat arrived and pulled everyone to safety. The group were very calm and did not appear to be in any immediate danger, but if they had tried to exit in these conditions then they may have met misfortune.

A very exciting day out of the water with a strong lesson learned about the treachery of the sea and unpredictable conditions. Also I think novice divers need to have alternative exits, where possible, on either side of the entry, especially if the entry is not an exit. Luckily no one was hurt and we all gained an appreciation for the changeability of our chosen sport environment.

The Leap to The Steps Map

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Oak Park 13 Feb 2010

My buddy was Keith and the Dive master was George. There was a surf competition on when we arrived and the inclement weather had driven all the sunbathers away. There was quite a big swell and high tide was about 2 hours before we dived so we encountered quite a bit of surge and current on the way back in.

 

Keith with  the very friendly blue groper. Ignore the date, I forgot to reset it when putting the batteries in the camera!

We went out to the cave and had not reached our turn around air so we went over the reef to see if we could find "fish soup". Unfortunately we didn't find it but we did startle a few fishermen. We watched a moray eel getting pretty excited with the fishing lure.

The journey back was quite hard and I could not regulate my breathing. I started to get perceptual narrowing which I recognised and just stopped and calmed down for a second. We saw a huge wobbegong and a numb ray on the way back but I was focusing (perceptual narrowing) on my breathing. The more I thought about my breathing, the more erratic it got. I tried to slow my breathing down but got anxious and gasping. I had my regulator tuned down too low and was struggling to fight the mild current. I recognized the issue and just calmed myself down and everything was OK. I surfaced near the exit point with 50 bar in the tank,

 

Timid Moray eel

The second dive was much more relaxed, we went out to the cave and had a look for the big Wobbegong we saw earlier. We found him, schools of king-fish and a huge eagle ray. All up 2 very good dives and Mid February seems to bring in the big fish to this area.

Here is a composite video of the 2 dives today.






Location information: (Open in a larger map to get more detail or zoom out)

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Shiprock Night Dive 10 February 2010

Dive Location

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This is a great spot for a night dive but you do need to be aware and watch out for boat traffic.

This site is a marine reserve so you should not take anything and leave the site exactly as you find it. We saw 2 huge Wobbegongs (Carpet Sharks), cuttlefish, lots of eels, I think they like the dark and I particularly liked the Christmas tree plants (?). I don't know there correct name but when you knock them they glow brightly with little green balls for a few seconds.

My buddy was Lawrie and the DM was Carl. This is a great night dive site that has to be dived on the slack tide, the currents in this channel are too strong to dive on a changing tide (unless you plan a drift dive)

Shellharbour- Bass Point & The Gravel Loader

Double dive at Shelharbour, about 90km south of Sydney. My dive buddy was Mihn and the DM was Cem.

I tried the sport setting on my camera and adjusted the white balance to fluorescent and the images appear clearer but there is still a green hue. The first dive was pretty straight forward and we did get to see two little port jackson sharks and a few nudibrancs.

The second dive was on the Gravel loader. It is a huge man made jetty that goes out to allow the big ships to load their gravel. Here is Mihn with the Gravel loader in the back ground before we submerged.

 

I have been a bit slack in updating my blog lately as can be seen from the date of the dive and the date of the post.

Hopefully this will improve soon

Here is the video of the 2 dives from this day rolled into one with a soundtrack selected by Youtube's random generator.

The Leap and the Steps (Kurnell National Pak) 23 January 2010

I had a bit of a run in with a film crew who had hogged all the road and parking spaces before the dive but I managed to settle down before entering the water.


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We did have one diver who had blood shot eyes and felt physically sick after his first dive, He didn't look too good at all and at first we thought it may have been CO2 retention but the blood shot eyes were getting worse so we called DAN and they had a chat and asked him to go to hospital for further checks. I suspect it may have been a pre-existing condition exasperated by the diving as we had only been to about 12M and he was fine until he started to ascend (It may have been sinus related- hence the bloody eyes?). It turns out Brendan (the diver in question) had a sever case of Mask Squeeze and as he hadn't equalized his mask correctly he had burst all the capillaries in his eyes. He was fine after an hour or so.

Here is a video of the complete dive, A bit long but captured for the record and there is some good Weedy Sea dragon footage in here.
My Dive buddy was Mihn and the DM was George.