Three years today

 Cave diving, Uncategorized  4 Responses »
Feb 272014
 
Three years today

The photo above is myself and Ag at the Melbourne Uni Club of the Year dinner in 2007. The Underwater Club won the annual prize which I accepted as President, while feeling that the bunch of the work done to earn it had been other people’s. In particular Ag’s contribution and leadership over several years of enthusiasm and co-ordination got hundreds of people into the water for weekends and club dive trips. Today is the third anniversary of Agnes passing away in Tank Cave. We’re now beyond the point where she had plans that I knew about. The conferences she intended to speak at or attend have been and gone. The trip reports have been published for the big trip [read more…]

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Night diving at Dumaguete

 Macro, Ocean diving, Reef diving  3 Responses »
Feb 252014
 
Night diving at Dumaguete

About the resort The dive schedule at Atlantis Dive Resort, Dumaguete, is great if all you want to do is go diving. The boat runs out to the dive sites are short and the boats leave every 2.5 hours, with an extra hour off for lunch. It helps that the dive sites are shallow so repetitive diving within very conservative no deco limits is possible. The schedule gives a surface interval of just over an hour between 60 minute dives and means 4 dives a day is easy. And after the four day dives…night diving! About the dive I’m normally not a huge fan of night diving. If I’m going to hang out in the ocean with a bunch of creatures, [read more…]

Images, suspended

 Caving, Tasmania  No Responses »
Feb 182014
 
Images, suspended

About the cave These images are from the Junee Florentine in Tasmania, from a cave called Dwarrowdelf. I was down there the weekend before last, with the intention for the trip to refine my SRT technique and get some practise in. After Saturday on the climbing wall in Hobart improving rope lengths, on Sunday we headed to Dwarrowdelf. The cave was selected as it has a series of SRT drops in a row without much (any) horizontal cave in between. As well as nailing down my skills and improving the speed of my rebelays, I was keen to attempt taking pictures while on the rope. From previous caving adventures I have shots of people leaving the bottom, and appearing or [read more…]

Whalesharks at Cebu, Philippines

 Ocean diving, Overseas, Reef diving  No Responses »
Feb 112014
 
Whalesharks at Cebu, Philippines

About the site I was in the Philippines over Christmas at Atlantis Dive Resorts, Dumaguete, courtesy of Diversion Dive Travel. The prize I won gave me the choice of the two Atlantis locations, Puerto Galera and Dumaguete. The big advantage of Dumaguete is its proximity to Oslob and the whalesharks at Cebu. My understanding is that the fishermen at Cebu used to chuck their bycaught shrimps and other small fish overboard when they returned, and the whalesharks quickly learned where to get their free meal. The whalesharks are now a major tourist attraction with canoe loads of local and international tourists visiting every day. About our visit There was a strong breeze when we arrived causing small white caps across [read more…]

Waterfalls in Growling Swallet Cave

 Caving, Tasmania  No Responses »
Feb 072014
 
Waterfalls in Growling Swallet Cave

About the cave Growling Swallet is an extensive “dry” cave system in the Junee-Florentine karst area in southern Tasmania. The early parts of the cave are complex with multiple routes and leads off in different directions and at different levels. After some distance it straightens out into over a kilometre of mainline streamway passage. The cave temperature is around 8 degrees, a little colder than your average mainland cave. About the trip I was down in Tassie over the Australia Day long weekend two weeks ago with a group of cavers from across Australia. There were a few different missions underway, including some that resulted in an impressive new connection between caves. Our focus was Growling Swallet and the sump [read more…]

Macro video at Dumaguete

 Macro, Other, Reef diving  3 Responses »
Jan 202014
 

Over the course of my week at Atlantis Dive Resort Dumaguete in the Philippines (with thanks to Diversion Dive Travel) I did 26 dives plus a day trip to snorkel with the whalesharks. This meant heaps of in-water time to photograph everything that moved and a few things that didn’t (more photo stories to come!). So by day three or four I swapped my strobes for my Archon video lights and jumped in to try something different. I hadn’t attempted video with my 100mm macro lens before and I was fairly sure it was going to be tricky – I was right. But the critters at Dumaguete were fairly obliging and the sandy bottom made it easier to stabilise the [read more…]

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