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Diving Down Under, Down Under

By
Pat Foskett

The Foskett family holiday 2000 promised to be something special, after months of planning we flew off to Australia to visit my long lost brother in Victoria, see the sights of Sydney and experience our first "live aboard" diving trip.

Everything had gone well. We had had a comfortable flight, a happy family reunion, climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge and tried out many of the activities Australia had to offer. Everything had exceeded our high expectations but the best was yet to come!

Once on board little time was lost in getting down to business. We were quickly briefed and given a safety demonstration before being shown to our cabins to change, then we met up at the back of the boat to kit up and go through the first dive plan. I had nagging fears about meeting something larger and more fierce than me and assurances that they only have nice sharks and whales in the waters so far North did not immediately convince me. Fortunately there was no time to worry any further about this. I turned my attention to the diving platform at the back of the boat, it was about 8 or 10 feet above the surface of the water and I was accustomed to rolling in backwards from a RIB or jumping in from the side of the pool, all of 6 inches above the water level. I breathed in deeply, looked at the horizon as instructed and stepped out away from the platform. Of course nothing dreadful happened, my buddy joined me in the water and we began to descend together. My first 2 or 3 metres descent was slow as my wet suit was new and very buoyant and I had to "duck dive". I was just settling upright in the water, clearing my ears and marvelling at the beautiful clarity of the water when a White Tipped Reef Shark glided smoothly across in front of us. Our dive leader, Craig, was frantically making signals at us but we could not fail to see it, just feet away and not at all interested in us. After all my fears I could only wonder why I was so calm.

We had seen quite a bit of marine life already while we were out snorkelling and kayaking but the sites we dived along the Ribbon Reefs lived up to their reputation being likened to swimming through an aquarium.

Our second dive of the day was at the Cod Hole where we were promised a spectacular dive to watch Giant Potato Cod being fed. We dropped down to about 17 metres and settled on the bottom. I had already seen a couple of the Potato Cod from a distance but now, as one of the crew descended with a box of Mackerel, we were suddenly surrounded by dozens of these fish. They are often described as ugly, being as long as a man but very bulky. They have large boney jaws but they are not aggressive and do not have sharp teeth, unlike the Red Wrasse which also appeared in large numbers as if from nowhere. They obviously recognised that the man with the gloved hands and the black box was a certain source of food. Despite the large numbers of fish involved in this feeding frenzy weaving closely in and out amongst us I was surprised that they never made contact. Although they looked so clumsy they were very graceful and absolutely fascinating.

The reefs generally showed signed of bleaching and dying in places, which was sad to see. However, the fish were still plentiful in an array of colours with many being recognised from the plastic fish guide card being carried. There were many large Groupers on some dives and seeing them at 'cleaning stations' still amuses me.

In the early evening we prepared for the third and final dive of the day, my first ever night dive. This was scarey. It had been a long day with a long coach ride, the flight, settling into the boat and two earlier dives, not to mention the terrific lunch which I had insisted I could not eat but which had in fact cured my sea sickness as promised. I was tired and unsure of what to expect but I was determined not to miss a thing so I kitted up and waited in line by the platform breathing deeply and wishing it was not such a rush. Just at that moment the floodlights on the back of the boat lit up the waters behind us and a million little neons exploded from the waters's surface flashing like a display of fireworks. Thus distracted, I jumped into the water and began my slow descent, after the first few metres I began to descend quite rapidly to about 22 metres, training my torch on the seabed. I waited for the others to catch me up as I slowly turned looking around and waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness.

We set off on a leisurely dive, tiredness and tension all forgotten, there was so much still to see, Lion Fish, Moray Eels and Turtles. The only difficulty I had was maintaining buoyancy control. When I swam above about ten metres I started to ascend involuntarily. Several times I needed help to get back down, in fact I found it quite useful on that first day that my computer was the only one which bleeped on rapid ascent. Wade, the dive leader would swim over and hang onto my fin while I regained control. After a couple of times I managed to get back down under my own efforts but it was becoming a struggle and quite tiring. After forty minutes we went back up. I climbed on board put my kit away and showered and changed for dinner. The food was wonderful and the company very good but by nine p.m. I was tucked up in bed sleeping soundly.

Day 2: I was up very early, writing up my log book and getting ready for the pre-breakfast dive. We dived around a pinnacle known as the "Lighthouse Bommie" because of its shape. I was getting used to my wet suit and fresh from a good nights sleep I had a much more controlled dive gradually ascending in a spiral around the pinnacle bommie. I took lots of photographs of shoals of beautiful yellow striped fish, Clown Fish tucked away in the Anemones, Tuna and large silver Mackerel. When the time came to go back up as we climbed back aboard the boat a cry went up that Minke Whales had been sighted close by. Just my luck! I had missed them.

We were due to move on to another diving site but Ruth, the Diving Director, decided we would stay put in the hope that we would all see the whales. After breakfast we went back into the water. As always my descent from the surface was difficult and I duck dived. I was still struggling at 10 metres until finally I decided I would have to stop. As soon as I relaxed I began to ascend. It was only as I climbed on to the ladder at the back of the boat with unusual ease that I realised I had not put on my weight belt!

This oversight corrected, I jumped back in and descended to about 30 metres and then came back up to 6 metres, whale watching. This had to be the absolute highlight of the whole trip. Six Minke Whales swam around , among and under us for 5 or 6 hours playing under the boat, turning on their backs, jumping out of the water and generally putting on an awesome display while we dived and snorkelled close to the surface. The Whales were particularly interested in snorkellers curiosity bringing them within arms length, apparently they keep further away from divers as they do not like the noise of the bubbles.

After lunch the boat moved on, leaving the whales behind. We went on to complete our 11 dives and, although we all agreed it would be difficult to top what we had already seen, there was always lots to see and lots to talk about over dinner each evening. I guess we were very lucky in our first taste of life on a liveaboard, the crew and the divers were all very good company, the chef was incredible, the weather and water conditions were particularly kind, in fact the only down side was that all good things must come to an end. Well never mind, as a fellow BSAC diver said to me, "it is very easy diving over there, you get no challenge" well I can see the point (though I have never believed in doing things the hard way if there is an easy one) so with that in mind I am looking forward to my next U.K. dive, hopefully my first wreck dive, all I have to do is hang in there and keep putting my name down for club dives, sooner or later I must get a Sunday when the weather doesn't blow the dive out!

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