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Friday afternoon a small group of us who had driven up earlier met at Merimbula wharf for a pre trip dive to sort ourselves and our equipment out. Since my camera incident in Townsville, my camera housing had been sent to Ikelite in America for a complete overhaul and an upgrade. Not having been in the water for over a month I was using this dive to get back into it and check out my new camera and the housing after being serviced before diving the next three days.
Seven of us made the dive and we entered off the rocks at the wharf. We all descended at different times after sorting ourselves out at the surface. Straight away I had problems with my camera not focusing and jamming up. That was it for my photography for that dive. During the dive we saw seadragons, gloomy octopus, schools of mackerel, long fin pike, eastern blue groper, moray eels and many other species. After about 45 minutes we exited the water.
Once back on land I checked over the housing, on closer inspection we noticed that none of the buttons on the back of the housing had been serviced and as a result three of the cir-clips had rusted through and fallen off completely. I think I was lucky to get out of the water without a flooded camera. |
| The next morning we were up early and heading off to Eden wharf for our first dive which was to be on the Tasman Hauler. There was lots of fish life but unfortunately only about 10 metre viz and quite surgy conditions. As this tug is still very much intact it has great penetration and most of the walls and bulkheads are still present. Upon surfacing after the dive and getting back on the boat (not easy with a short ladder and a sloppy sea when the front of the boat is moored), I had to move amongst several people in different states of seasickness. Some thinking about it, some in the process and some had gone into full blown RALPH mode complete with roaring sound effects. |
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| Due to the conditions present our second dive of the day was again on the Tasman Hauler and this time we got to do a little bit more penetration as we were now accustomed to the conditions. We started out dive at the stern of the tug exploring the large propeller before moving on to explore the engine room, locate the ships toilet and showers. We finished off around the bridge before ascending up the line back to the boat. By the end of the first day everyone was glad to get their feet back on firm land as the conditions were quite challenging but I think we all learnt a lot and are better for the experience. |
| With strong north easterly winds to 30 knots forecast out second day dive sites were limited to the area east of Merimbula wharf towards Long Point. Although we had relatively good surface conditions a large swell still created a surge and unfortunately visibility was limited to 8-10 metres and it was quite dark. These dives were mainly in large boulders with areas of sea tulips, kelp and sea urchin barrens. Whilst we did not see huge amounts of life in and around the rocks as with most NSW diving they have lots more fish life swimming around then we do. |
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| During the dives we had several large schools of yellow tail scad circle us completely, mixed in with a few long finned pike. We had clouds mado following us closely for most of the dives in hopes we would kick something up or feed them perhaps. We ended the dives in the sea urchin barrens which extend from the shore to around 10 metres where the sea urchins have pretty much cleaned all the rock bare. In between dives everyone who was feeling the effects of the swell got a little break as we headed back to a small jetty. Once back on land we broke out thermoses of hot tomato soup BBQ shapes and chicken in a biscuit. |
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On day three the wind had dropped and changed direction to a southerly so we decided to try out the other side of Merimbula bay as surface conditions were better. Entering the water and descending I realised this may not have been the best decision. It was dark and surgy making buddy contact, buoyancy control and navigation very difficult, although I did hear some people blaming the amount of iron in the rocks that was mucking up their navigation. The dive site itself, was a great dive site, it was just unfortunate that the conditions we had on the day did not allow us to enjoy it, but thems the breaks. However we did find a nice port Jackson shark, large snapper, sergeant baker and several large blue grouper. |
After another soup and biscuit stop between dives, which so far was the highlight of our day we decided to dive the Long Point side of the bay again near Merrimbula wharf. This was the last dive of the trip; we enjoyed better surface conditions and less surge so we were all feeling very comfortable and not as seasick. During this dive we saw gloomy octopus, including one that tried to drag Amber into its hole, a large draughtboard shark, lots of different species of nudibranch and a big long snouted boarfish as the main standouts.
Over pizza Monday night we all discussed the different aspects of the trip, some good, some bad as we downed our $200 worth of pizza. |
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