Rebreathers in the Shaft

 Cave diving, Mt Gambier, rEvo  No Responses »
Feb 102015
 
Rebreathers in the Shaft

The Shaft is a beautiful dive, and an impossible cave to photograph. After I finally achieved that classic shot of the sunbeam down the middle of the hole, rockpile lit up and diver frozen up in the shallows, I declared I never needed to take photographs in there again. And yet, two summers on I was headed over to Gambier with my parents for a fun family weekend with a Shaft booking in place. A couple of weeks beforehand Kelvyn was chatting to the landowners about the long-discussed intent of opening the site up to rebreathers. While there have been “special interest” dives in the Shaft on rebreathers previously regular diving has all been run on open circuit. Letting a [read more…]

Backlit bubbles in Tank Cave

 Cave diving, Mt Gambier, rEvo  No Responses »
Feb 042015
 
Backlit bubbles in Tank Cave

After our very pleasant jaunt through DD31, Moo and I headed over to Tank Cave for the rest of the Australia Day weekend. It was good to see a whole bunch of freshly minted Advanced Cave divers working through their first group dives with enthusiasm. Tim and I left the gold lines to them and headed down the back of the cave. I was on the rEvo but Tim was back on open circuit and carrying a couple of large stages in addition to his sidemounts. The rEvo makes a big difference to photography in Tank, as once I’m in the right spot I can take more than a couple of different angles without worrying about my bubbles disturbing silt [read more…]

MOD3 and 100m on the rEvo

 Ocean diving, Reef diving, rEvo  No Responses »
Jan 132015
 
MOD3 and 100m on the rEvo

Once we had progressed through the skills and drills dives discussed in the last post, it was on to the deeper stuff. This meant many of the same flashcards seen previously with the added pressure of extra depth. Rather than swimming out from shore we also added some very small boats to the fun. The second photo here is me fully geared up in my rEvo as we chugged towards the dive site. On arrival in the right location it was a sideways manoeuvre to get fins on and slip over the side of the boat. The driver then passed in my three stages and we did a floating S drill as a team. It’s the rainy season in Bali at [read more…]

MOD2 course – taking the rEvo to 60m

 Ocean diving, Reef diving, rEvo  1 Response »
Jan 062015
 
MOD2 course - taking the rEvo to 60m

I have just returned from ten days in Bali, and nearly 20 hours of time underwater. After doing the MOD1 course on my rEvo in warm Indonesian waters back in 2013, it seemed like time to repeat the experience with a little more depth. I’ve done enough rEvo diving over the intervening period that I was comfortable with the combined MOD2 and MOD3 courses in one trip. The plan was for skills, drills, theory, work up dives and an eventual dive to 100m. First up was the MOD2 for normoxic trimix bailout. Of course, as per the MOD1 course the camera came along for the ride. I installed the deep spring kit in my Aquatica housing prior to the trip [read more…]

Blenny central under Mornington Pier

 Macro, Ocean diving, Reef diving  No Responses »
Nov 252014
 
Blenny central under Mornington Pier

About the site Mornington Pier is currently under reconstruction. In the last 12 months they’ve removed and replaced almost all of the pylons, changing from the old wooden pillars to new steel and plastic contraptions. All of this work hasn’t done much for the underwater scenery with many of the critters that could manage it moving on. The bottom has been scoured down in places and until the greenery grows back there won’t be very many places to hide. On the other hand the local fishing community hasn’t had easy access to the end of the pier either. I spent the dive surrounded by schooling old wives, juvenile sweep and yellow tailed silver thingies. Being on the rEvo made me [read more…]

Sunbeams in Sinkholes

 Cave diving, Mt Gambier  No Responses »
Nov 192014
 
Sunbeams in Sinkholes

About the dive Kilsby’s is gorgeous…I’ve been there many, many times and it’s usually great. Then on some occasions it moves from being great to being truly awesome. These photos were taken on one of those days. On this particular weekend the whole cave diving world was booked in to dive Tank Cave. Myself and my parents had three awesome dives at Pics, Pines and Kilsby’s without seeing another soul. The water in both the Cathedral in Pics and in the main cavern of Pines was crystal clear. And then there was Kilsby’s. In early November I wasn’t sure if we’d be seeing much sunlight in the water. But by 9.45am or so the sunlight was just starting to creep off [read more…]

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