Eagle Hawk Neck, Tassie – Easter 2016

Divers:  Tim, Roger, Push, Youri, Spike, Ben, Sammy, Nick, Ian, Bert, Giullian, Vikki, Andrew & Mark

Surface crew (and Whiskey taster): Annette

Every Easter, Aquability run a trip to Eagle Hawk Neck, the gate way to the world famous Tasman Peninsula. An area rich in history, and even richer in beautiful scenery both above and below the water. After disembarking the ferry on Friday morning and eating our way down to the south east of the island we dived the renowned Cathedral Caves, for some of us this is the first time here, for others it is familiar territory. This cave system is not for everyone, but for those that take on the adventure will find it to be an amazing dive. The cave system has many sections to it, even after years of diving the area it’s impossible to have covered it all. The long tunnels do get squeezy in parts and can only be dived when the swell is low, but this is a dive you will remember for ever. We also dived the SS Nord, one of the shipwrecks claimed by the Hippolyte Rocks Reef, unfortunately this wreck was stripped by local divers in the 70’s & 80’s but there is still plenty to see and quite a few places to penetrate the wreck. The Rudder still moves and a dive around the prop produces some amazing photos. The Nord is a ‘must do’ dive for anyone diving this area. We also managed to get some dives in the Giant Kelp Forrest, hopefully the Giant Kelp can recover from almost distinction and will once again be the great dive site it once was. We dived Sisters & The Thumbs, both incredible wall dives. After the presentation given to us by renowned Marine Biologist Karen Gowlett-Holmes on Invertebrates we had plenty to look for on these dives using our newly gained knowledge.
A big thank you to our hosts Mick & Karen, and also Pauline & Ben for their efforts in making this such a wonderful weekend.

Mark

A Team preparing for another Cave dive

DCIM102GOPRO