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Juvenile blue whiptail and lots of tropical fish

Clean Up Australia Day underwater clean up hosted by Caroline Corcoran. 2nd trial of thermal undershirt - connections came apart and burnt skin!

Trial dive with Peter Lightowler for thermal undershirt - success!

Great night dive - no duskies (too dark) but great vis, no surge and lots of fish n critters out n about!

BI angler. Helped Stan, ended up doing East side instead of Deep Wall with shop.

Highlights: Ringed Janolus, Blue Dragon laying eggs, Velvet fish

First Ursuit try dive - carried 20lbs and was wearing thin waterproof undergarments with heated vest. Too heavy. East wall bit quiet and boring today, but good vis for the most part.

av depth: 10m Shore dive with Rick at Shark Point - fair bit of current and surge, not that clear. Lots of swimming since have to go out from the pool. Did north side first dive. PJs, fish, ray.

av depth: 9.1m 2nd shore dive with DCB - south side Shark Point. Not much to see, fair bit of current and lots of swimming!

av depth: 2.7m! Night dive with DCB. Awesome dive, no current, great vis and heaps of critters out!

av depth: 9.4m Shore dive with DCB - only 3 others (Christina, Adam & DM in training Michael) Bad surge and vis, like a washing machine. All fish and animals in hiding. Hard dive, lots of swimming against current, not able to take pics.

av depth: 7.3m 2nd dive with DCB - north side this time. More interesting but terrible conditions. Not much to see - missed the bunch of PJs. DM in training lead the dive.

av depth 15.2m Had light undergarments on - very cold. Strong incoming current and not much around.

av depth 3.9m First dive with Nikon camera rig - tested it out. All good. (solo dive)

av depth: 6.4m Helping Daniela get in and out of water - 1st dive after back surgery Testing camera - strobe not firing :(

av depth 7.6m Shop dive with Bondi Dive Centre and Vanessa leading.

av depth 6.7m Not much on the East wall and vis dropped off right after low tide.

av depth 8.5m Great vis, baby giant cuttlefish, huge wobbegong. Dived with Christina, Tommy, Kosta, Marine guy. Lead by Dave. Back in neoprene drysuit - very heavy (weights) and hard to vent!

av depth: 14m Nice dive, very good vis, light current, lots of weedies

av depth: 9.1m Bad vis (after high tide), fair current. PJs, weedies, lots of nudis (tamja). Got cold, little leak in Ursuit.

av depth 8.8m poor vis

av depth:7.3m

av depth 10m Great solo dive - lots to see even though vis wasn't great. Blue ringed octopus, sea horse, mosiac leather jacket eating a jelly fish & nembrotha nudi were the highlights!

av depth 5.1m First dive at Bare Island West - 7 of us there, including 2 sets of newbies who were underweighted and couldn't descend. Then there was me an excellent newbie but GUE diver, and a pretty bad American instructor guy. Spent the first 20 mins hanging out on the bottom at the entry point while the newbies got extra weight & tried to descend! Then Patrice left us to take them back a short time later & I thought he said to stay and wait so we hung there for another 20 mins just poking around, until I figured he wasn't coming back!! Vis was good, we were right on high tide. Found an octopus and a few other random things but very disappointing dive. Was determined to get the two experience guys around the side on the second dive to show them what Bare Island really has to offer....

av depth 11.2m I lead the second dive so I could show the american instructor & Wai Keen what Bare has to offer, & Patrice followed with the newbies & left to get them out once they got low on air. Got around the west side easily but took the wrong turn to the middle reef on the way back and had to do a blue water ascent & inflate the SMB & surface swim back to the island. Vis was poor, not a huge amount to see, lots of nudies - just poked around. The guys were happy enough though. (No camera!)

av depth 4.2m First dive out with new TG4 camera, worked ok but batteries died on everything - camera, strobe and torch! Only two other divers testing gear. Nice night dive. Lots of pyjama squid, cuttle fish, fan bellied leather jackets, hermit crabs, sea hares & a little cow fish. Not much surge, ok vis - nice dive! (Long time since done a night dive here!)

av depth 10.3m Dive out with a few people who haven't done Shiprock before - Christina & Adam (US) & Dennis (Germany). Nice dive, not great vis though even when high tide hit. Current only slight. Lots to see, wobbegongs, pineapple fish, schools of fish, moray eel, two different little box fish, leather jackets, fish that looked like Southern Blue Devil fish but couldn't be! Lots of tropicals prob since so warm. First day dive with TG4 camera - worked nicely despite having to juggle camera in one hand & crap torch in the other & having strobe mounted on the hotshoe, need a tray & arms to set up properly. Nice dive but sea was too rough to get a second one in elsewhere (seas big after Cyclone Winston up in Fiji a few days back).

av depth: 7.3m surgey and a bit of current, tricky exit. average vis - got worse but we were on low tide. a few things to see giant cuttle fish x2, box fish x2, flat heads, school of flute fish, lots of stripeys, red rock cod & sting rays. Not the most exciting dive but ok!

av depth 3.3m Terrible dive, very murky & no GPF

av depth: 7.6m Gordons Bay Nature Trail Working Bee - cleaning buoys and plates, replacing chains etc in teams - good fun!

av depth: 6.4m 2nd clean up dive at the Gordon's Bay Nature Trail

av depth 9.7m Great dive at the Monument after tricky entry due to very low tide. Lots to see - highlight was tiny orange painted angler fish.

av 5.4m

av depth: 3.6m Dive with Gaetano & Mandy to find the ornate ghostpipe fish. Success!

av depth 4.2m showing Seb the ornate GPF! Turned into a night dive - great dive with Seb.

av depth=8.2m Went to find dusky whaler sharks but went to opposite side. Nice dive, decent vis - inquisitive octopus and lots of fish

av depth: 10m Wai Keen's first dive at Ship Rock. Pretty bad vis but lots of interesting fish around

av depth: 7.3m Nice dive at Bare, lots to see & good vis even though low tide. Wai Keen turned back early, cold and bored!

av depth: 9.4m late arvo dive with Wai Keen, got quite far around to the back of the island. Lots to see although vis wasn't great. Heaps of fish, including a ball of schooling catfish in midwater!

av depth: 3.9m Night dive at Camp Cove with Adam and Wai Keen (Christina forgot her regs!) Major leak in drysuit (not sure why!) but managed to keep going! Did middle reef for first time, not huge amount to see critter wise but still interesting. Lots of critters in the shallows. Nice dive despite the leak! Last Sydney night dive for a while :(

av depth: 9.1m Last Sydney diving day spent with Christina. Started nice and clear but vis dropped off at depth. Had great fun swimming through crevices and finding big colourful cuttle fish. Lovely dive with lots of schools of little fish etc. Still very warm in the water.

av depth: 9.7m 2nd farewell Sydney dive with Christina. Dennis and Parr joined as well after their GUE drill training at Gordons. Parr hadn't done it before. Ended up leading them around to Shark Point (from Clovelly Poo)l and back. Didn't get all the way round, but managed to see a fair bit of the nice back walls. Nice dive, but vis was pretty crap at depth. Lots of sponges and orange hard coral with white flowers on the walls. Not alot of fish life though. Everyone enjoyed the dive. And that's it for now for Sydney diving (next dive in Iceland!) Was in Seatec dry suit as Ursuit drying out!

av depth: 9.4m Dive with the Bondi divers - buddied up with Vanessa. Found a weedy at the back, a few nudis and the BI Angler. Nice dive, no current but vis dropped significantly by the end of the dive so didn't go in for a second. Big swell gave a tricky exit. Nice Sydney dive while Seb was on his GUE Fundies course :)

av depth: 10.6m Dive with Bondi peeps from Steps to the Monument (walked to nearby the Steps entry point, so not quite the Steps). Saw weedies but highlight of the dive was finding a v small Sydney Pygmy Pipehorse - saw it out of the corner of my eye when I was trying to shoot a clinger fish! A bit of swell though so was getting thrown around a bit in the surge. Nice dive while Seb was off on his GUE course.

av depth: 2.4m Great night dive with the Bondi girls (Vanessa, Chris & Katie) - lots to see incl blue ring occy, dumpling & PJ squid, nudis, crabs, velvet fish. Nikon works great at night, great lighting (have to sort out day shooting though).

Terrible dive, bad vis, very cold (took trilam!), surgey - like a night dive and not much to see! Xmas eve dive with Daniela and her dive group (and Kylie).

Xmas morning dive with Bondi people organised by Mark - santa hats, reindeer horns and silly costumes all round :) A bit boring in the beginning but found lots of nudis etc at the end of the dive under the ledge. Fighting/mating rock cod were entertaining. First dive at Gordon's for Seb - not impressed! Sync cord on TG4 broke :(

Dusk/night dive with Kylie and Pete. Terrible vis but no surge so played around with cameras on one bommie for almost the whole dive! Found a new nudie - a tiny Bloody Madrella. Also some of the common nudis, a lion fish, a tiny orange box fish and an amorous green moray near the entry!

Night dive with Bondi peeps - Vanessa, Rick, Adam, Christina, Dorothea Lots of lines everywhere from heaps of fisherman on the jetty, totally disoriented, didn't enjoy this dive at all even though there was a fair bit to see...

Just me and Seb dived today, was okay. Short tailed ceratosoma was the highlight. Bad vis, but lots of nudis etc around. Seb got cold in his 3mm!

av depth: 9.3m First dive with shiny new computer :) Pretty average dive, average vis, not much to see - good riddance Sydney!