Caving through Elk River

 Cave diving, Victoria  3 Responses »
Jan 282013
 
Caving through Elk River

About the trip Apologies for today’s slightly delayed post…I’ve been underground. Elk River, accessed through Baby Berger cave in the Buchan Potholes Reserve, is also known as the “Murrindal Potholes Eastern Master Cave” and is the deepest cave in Victoria at 105m. The streamway was discovered in 2006 by the local Victorian Limestone Caving Team, and  between 2008 and 2010 Jim Arundale and Agnes Milowka made several pushes through the first sump to put more cave on the map. Agnes wrote up a great history of the cave’s discovery on her website here. In summary, 2 hours of carrying, passing and dragging gear through tiny squeezes, around precarious drops and under very narrow roof sniffs puts the eager cave diver [read more…]

Divers in the ocean

 Ocean diving, Wrecks  No Responses »
Jan 212013
 
Divers in the ocean

About the site Both of today’s photos were taken out of Melbourne on a visit to one of the J class subs. The beauty of it is that both could have been taken anywhere in the ocean with relatively clear water and somewhat flat seas, although I do think the deep blue colour of the water gives away the temperate location. About the dive The dive in this instance was a fairly high speed affair to a wreck with limited bottom time. I was also on air which meant a lot of the photos of the sub itself were affected by my narcosis – none of them are what you’d call winning shots. Instead my favourite shots from this dive [read more…]

Tiny fish in Thailand

 Ocean diving, Reef diving  1 Response »
Jan 142013
 
Tiny fish in Thailand

About the dive This shot was taken during a liveaboard trip on the MV Giamani – you can see the slideshow of images from the trip in last week’s update. I was excited to be heading off to the tropics, and very excited to get in the water with my new toy, a Canon 100mm f2.8 macro lens. While it did seem ironic to be swimming around in 40m vis surrounded by great scenery, I spent my first ever dives actively hunting for tiny things. About the critter I have no idea what fish this is. Big stuff has previously been my forte and I can identify weedy seadragons and green turtles at 40 paces. I suspect this is something [read more…]

Diving the Similan Islands from the MV Giamani

 Ocean diving, Reef diving  1 Response »
Jan 072013
 

[fsg_gallery id=”1″] Instead of showcasing just two images this week, I thought I’d share my curated selection from last week’s trip to Thailand with you. Over the course of six days I did 22 dives as we sailed north and west from Phuket to the Similan and Surin Islands on board the MV Giamani. The water was warm, the vis was great, the fish were abundant, and the liveaboard routine of dive-eat-sleep-repeat was excellent. Ricardo’s tolerance of photographers and their speed underwater (slooooow) was fantastic and much appreciated. I was able to get some good experimentation in with my new macro lens, so I’ll be able to share some of my discoveries of very small marine life with you. There [read more…]

Chasing fish in wide angle

 Ocean diving, Reef diving  2 Responses »
Dec 312012
 
Chasing fish in wide angle

About the site Both of these photos were taken on different bits of Lonsdale Wall. The rich temperate waters support a lot of life, including huge populations of the yellow zooanthids and other colourful sponges and corals. The walls look beautiful underwater but the colours can be really hard to photograph well. Strobe light drops off a couple of metres from the camera and balancing natural and artificial light sources without having some portion of your yellow zooanthids looking a sickly green can be tricky. A few years on, I’ve perfected lighting zooanthids so they come up yellow against a blue background. With some clear blue waters hanging around Melbourne over the last month, I’ve done a handful of brilliant [read more…]

Reflections in Weebubbie Lake

 Cave diving, Nullarbor  2 Responses »
Dec 242012
 
Reflections in Weebubbie Lake

About the site I talked about my quick trip out to Weebubbie Cave a couple of weeks ago. As well as having a stunning tunnel, it has the largest “cavern zone” of the regularly dived Nullarbor caves and was selected to allow our newly rated Deep Cavern diver room to move. To reach the underwater cave divers swim out from shore for a couple of hundred metres down a wide tunnel. In a circular, domed room at the end we descended down the rocky floor and into the underwater continuation. You can check out the photos from this massive space here. With most divers focussed on reaching the back of the cave, I suspect we’re all swimming on the surface to [read more…]

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