Itchy turtles at Julian Rocks

 Ocean diving, Reef diving  No Responses »
Jun 092015
 
Itchy turtles at Julian Rocks

While I did consider a return to the annual Combined Clubs Weekend in Bicheno this June, after the temperature started to drop at home a flight north to Brisbane looked a lot more tempting. In the end we were somewhat foiled by the weather anyway with dives on the wreck of the Brisbane cancelled for the weekend for high winds. On Sunday we drove down to Byron Bay for a splash at Julian Rocks instead. The Rocks are a marine reserve a very short distance off the beach in Byron Bay. After a beach launch we jumped on the Sundive boat for a 5 minute run out. Two minutes later I was underwater. Given the weather situation I left my [read more…]

Currents on the wreck of the Cambridge

 Ocean diving, rEvo, Wrecks  No Responses »
Jun 032015
 
Currents on the wreck of the Cambridge

  About the wreck The SS Cambridge went down in 1940 to a German mine laid by the Passat. She was the first Allied vessel to be lost in Australian waters during WWII. Of the 58 crew on board when the mine exploded, 57 survived and were picked up and taken ashore at Port Welshpool. The wreck sits upright in 67m on a sandy bottom. After Steve’s tales of limitless vis and huge props from a dive back in November, I was looking forward to an awesome dive on her as the highlight of a weekend diving around Wilson’s Prom. About the dive Our original intentions were to hit the wreck at about 9am for the morning slack water. The [read more…]

Sea lions at Wilson’s Prom

 Ocean diving, Reef diving  1 Response »
May 262015
 
Sea lions at Wilson's Prom

About the site The Moncoeur Islands are a pair of small outcroppings of rock south of Wilson’s Promontory. Technically part of Tasmania, the granite slopes are inhabited by a large sealion population and flocks of sea birds. Access is tricky – the seas here are very exposed and good weather is rare. I was lucky enough to spend a weekend of relatively flat seas on the Ocean Odyssey, a very awesome boat. After launching from Port Welshpool and slowly chugging down the east coast of the Prom we did some dives in rough water on Saturday. By Sunday the waves had dropped a bit further and we kept heading south. About the dive Steve and I had done a deep-ish dive on [read more…]

Four years on the web

 Other  No Responses »
May 192015
 
Four years on the web

While I was pootling around underground in Mexico, this website passed its fourth anniversary. Four years since I spent a weekend setting up web hosting and nervously publishing my first photo and article. I didn’t tell anyone what I’d done for fear of early criticism sinking the whole grand idea. As I said two years ago I was afraid of having one of those two-post blogs, where the second post was about not having much to say “but be sure to check back soon!”. To avoid this I wrote my first dozen articles well before I posted the first one. For most of 2011 I had a 10 article buffer that slowly became a 6 article buffer followed shortly after [read more…]

A midnight ramble in Cueva de Eduardo

 Caving, Other, Overseas  No Responses »
May 122015
 
A midnight ramble in Cueva de Eduardo

Besides the fun of the main game in San Agustin and La Grieta on the PESH 2015 expedition, there was also some surface activity and trips to smaller objectives. Corey spent a day wandering the jungle and covered a huge distance from our lodgings. The universe being what it is, he found a highly prospective cave entrance on the way home, less than 200m from where we were staying. He came back with this news late in the day and made it sound enticing. Sometime after dark we decided to go and have a look. After sliding down the hill from the road through some particularly spiky vegetation, Corey relocated the entrance. I was expecting a small hole in the [read more…]

PESH 2015 – Diving Red Ball Canyon Sump Part II

 Cave diving, Caving, Overseas  1 Response »
May 052015
 
PESH 2015 - Diving Red Ball Canyon Sump Part II

In Part I I talked about the Huautla System, the trip into the San Agustin entrance and the first dives of Red Ball Canyon sump. So now we were past the two short sumps and into the expected dry cave behind. The cave was heading away upstream and while climbs were expected, the assumption was that the gradient would be relatively flat and the lead would eventually join up with another known cave system kilometres away. The next underground morning, Dave, Sandy and Andreas headed off to Red Ball Canyon to ferry three divers through sumps 1 and 2 with two sets of dive gear. They took a dry bag of drill and batteries, rigging bolts and rope with intentions [read more…]

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