Diving again today, with more sharks hanging around again. Love the
sharks here. Meet up time was half past seven, as the day before.
Geared up at the dive centre, hopped on to the boat and zoomed out to
the South Solitary Island again (one with a light house on it).
Arrived and geared up for another dive. This time there where only
eight of us, as compared to the twelve of yesterday. Four older guys
and four of us younger ones. One of us was doing his Advanced Open
Water diving, a certificate I would dearly like to complete some day,
too. I have now been on a few dives where initially the centres are
reluctant to take me deeper than 18 metres, as they should be. But
considering we were splitting up in to three groups and I was more on
the level on the trainee for the advanced dives, I tagged along with
them. Down we went, this time no problems on my side. Somebody from
another group had to few weights on, so our guide gave him a couple
more. Whilst all that was being done the rest of us were hanging
around the bottom watching some sharks hanging around. Once our guide
had rejoined us we were of. First of all through the manta archway
again (no mantas, though) and then down to 30 metres where the guide
asked the trainee a couple of questions. In that depth I was hanging
around watching more sharks lazily swimming past. Close to where we
were on the ground an organization had put up a shark tracking
beacon. Whenever a shark that has been tagged passes the beacon
records it and every couple of month it is retrieved and the data is
logged.
Further along the dive we had the ever present Grey Nurse Sharks
hanging around, some looking rather fat with what I guess is shark
pups. One came up behind the other two and surprised them but just
carried on swimming. Along the way we saw a few woebegone, a lion
fish, sea cucumbers, clown fish with a stone fish lying in wait next
to the anemone and a plethora of fish around one rock. Diving this
close to a wavy surface is rather interesting, as you are going the
direction you want to, the next minute the waves going back in to the
sea are pushing you the other way. The data of the dives is thus.
Maximum depth: 29 metres. Time in: 0905. Bottom time: 58 minutes.
Pressure Start/Finish: 240/50 bar.
Then an hour of rest with tea and cookies. The temperature was a lot
warmer than yesterday, so I didn't freeze nearly as bad.
Then back in for more searching of animals and admiring underwater
scenery. This time around I went with the group of the older people,
but stuck more to myself. Nothing against older people diving, I have
met many a forty to seventy year old person diving which have been
great people, but so far all of the ones I have met that don't seem
to give a sh**t about their surrounding are in that age group. One of
them was with us again, and instead of balancing himself in the water
properly and floating along with a few kick of the flippers he was
pulling himself along the ground with his hands, scraping the
flippers behind him and ripping up anemones from the ground and
causing general mayhem. That will probably go on as long until he
grabs a stone fish or hits a sea urchin. On this dive we saw the
always present sharks, a lot more woebegone (which probably counts to
the sharks), clown fish, a trigger fish (haven't seen that many of
them here) and the whales making a general racket around the reef.
Don't mind hearing them at the least, as they do make a wonderful
sound and if you don't like it, it is easy to block out. Just wish
they were a bit more visible. Along the way I was left with 120 bar
when the others had nearly used up all theirs, so I got a bit more
private diving with the guide. Had a look around and found another
woebegone. Met up with both the other groups, said hi and then
carried on looking around. Once the air was nearly used up, up we
went to the boat. Diving data of this dive. Maximum depth: 15 metres.
Time in: 1113. Bottom time: 55 minutes. Pressure Start/Finish: 220/60
bar.
On the way back we saw a heap of whales heading south. They are
probably the ones making all the noise underwater. I guess there are
a lot of mums going down with their calf's and teaching them a lot
along the way. Another fun day diving, would have probably booked in
another day, but no dives taking place tomorrow. Instead I'll be
looking forward to a journey to Sydney.
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