Rebreathers in Tank Cave

 Cave diving  No Responses »
Jan 132014
 
Rebreathers in Tank Cave

About the cave Tank Cave is one of my favourite places to be. Miles of tunnel, clear water, great photo opportunities, stairs to the water…and shallow tunnels, narrow spots and lots of small depth changes. Those last three points mean Tank is not generally regarded as a great cave for rebreathers. The counterlung acts as a third source of buoyancy in addition to the wing and the drysuit. As well as managing the oxygen levels in the rebreather, the diver also has to manage the gas volume. So every up and every down means either adding or venting in at least two locations. On an open circuit dive I manage microbuoyancy with my breath. Need to go up slightly? Breath [read more…]

Ornate ghost pipefish

 Macro, Ocean diving  No Responses »
Jan 062014
 
Ornate ghost pipefish

About the resort As I posted last, I’ve just spent a week at the lovely Atlantis Resort in Dumaguete, the Philippines sponsored by Diversion Dive Travel. Over 6.5 diving days I managed to take 2,367 photos and nearly two and a half hours of underwater video. The diving at Dumaguete is mostly muck diving. We sell tickets on the site and via telephone. This means the macro lens stayed on and my dives were a treasure hunt for strange critters over a mostly sand and rubble bottom. I did five dives a day and with only 1-2 hours between each one it was good to stay shallow. The resort itself was lovely topside with great food and facilities. Most importantly, [read more…]

Off to the Philippines

 Ocean diving, Other, Reef diving  1 Response »
Dec 232013
 
Off to the Philippines

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and happy holidays to everyone! I’m excited to be heading off to the Philippines in two day’s time, diving at Atlantis Resort Dumaguete on a trip sponsored by Diversion Dive Travel. Dirk at Diversion has been extraordinarily helpful with all the details of the trip, especially when it turned out that a change in the Philippines Airlines sports baggage policy meant my rEvo wouldn’t be able to come. So I will be back on open circuit for a week of critter spotting. I spent last night in the garage putting together a singles reg for a yoke tank – I must be going the tropics. I’ve also discovered that there’s no in seat entertainment on [read more…]

Pot-bellied seahorse pair at Blairgowrie Marina

 Macro, Ocean diving, Reef diving  No Responses »
Dec 162013
 
Pot-bellied seahorse pair at Blairgowrie Marina

About the site Blairgowrie Marina is known as a fantastic site for macro diving. Prior to buying my 100mm macro lens, I dived under piers only to testing new gear before heading to the caves. I generally chose Mornington for easy access from the car. Which means despite the great reputation, my very first dive at Blairgowrie was back in October. I made the most of the situation by leaving my strobe hotshoe only partially plugged in…doh. I have a bunch of “natural light” macro shots from that dive, and after checking out the critters and colours I was keen to return with strobes working. The piers around Melbourne have also been a great place to log some hours on [read more…]

rEvos on the J1 submarine

 Ocean diving, rEvo, Wrecks  No Responses »
Dec 092013
 
rEvos on the J1 submarine

About the wreck The J1 sub is one of five J-class submarines outside the Heads, lying in about 32m of water. She’s starting to fall apart now, especially around the middle section where she’s broken in half. The conning tower is gone and the fish school between the struts of the hull. About the dive With the exception of a couple of weekends spent exploring in Elk River I’ve been trying to get out on my rEvo every weekend since getting back from training in Bali and caves in Indonesia. It’s been good to get into a rhythm with the unit. I now feel more confident that I’ve remembered most of the bits that I need and haven’t left the [read more…]

Camping in Elk River

 Cave diving, Victoria  1 Response »
Nov 252013
 
Camping in Elk River

After a year of hard work and a lot of time in the cave, this was our 10th trip into Elk River for 2013. The cave has been extended both upstream and downstream and the spaces on the map have been gradually filled in. We capped off the year with Dave and Sandy carrying in some very large tanks and four of us sleeping at the far end of the cave, just above sump 5. Camping in there had been discussed a number of times but I never felt we were going to gain much by doing it while we could still reach the end and back in a single day. Then our last trip was a very efficient quick [read more…]

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