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SOME OF THE PREVIOUS MUDGEE DIVE AND TRAVEL TRIPS 2009 NELSON BAY DECEMBER 2009 OPEN WATER COURSE and SOCIAL DIVING Congratulations to Jaime Warren, Mitchell O'Gorman and Aidan Young on the successful completion of your Open Water Course. As well as the Open Water Course, we were joined for the first time by Merita and Craig from Newcastle for some social diving on the Sunday.
     
NELSON BAY NOV-DEC 2009 ADVANCED OPEN WATER DIVER COURSE Congratulations to Jacob Mackenzie, Rachael Toole, Kelly Morrison, Jacqui Scifleet, Lynden Cockerill-Wright on the successful completion of your Advanced Diver Course! Also a big thank you to Jake Hiep for his assistance during the trip as a DMIT! All photo's taken by Grant Willetts
For 5 days these Marine Studies students enjoyed an awesome trip to Nelson Bay for the completion of their AOWC Certification and some educational social diving, investigating the marine life of Neslon Bay and the reasons contributing to this unique environment. The water temperature averaged a balmy and sweet 22 degrees, with great viz.
ANNUAL OVERSEAS ADVENTURE: KINGDOM OF TONGA TONGATAPU AND VAVA'U OCTOBER 5TH - 15TH 2009 All Photo's taken by Grant Willetts
Should I dare say it...we had a 'Whale of a Time'.
All Photo's taken by Grant Willetts FORSTER / SEAL ROCKS MAY 2009 SHARK DIVING SHARKS, SEALS, MASSIVE RAYS, WARM WATER WITH CRYSTAL CLEAR CLARITY!!! Last weekend was arguably the best diving I have done in NSW for about 5 years! All Photo's taken by Grant Willetts With terrible seas the postponement of the Forster Shark Diving Trip by 3 weeks was a major disappointment. Consequently, four unfortunate souls were nolonger able to join us on the new date. For the those of us that could, the change of dates was a blessing in disguise... Water temperature was a constant 23 to 24 degrees. Visibility was a crystal clear 25 to 30m+.
You know you are in for some great diving when the travelling on the boat to the dive site, the water becomes a deep blue signaling clear water. Coupled with flat seas and the warmth of the sun the excitement was building long before the boat moored.
When the anchor drops in 20m of water and you can clearly see the bottom, its the quick and the boat boy. Everywhere you looked there was huge schools of tuna, kingfish, snapper, mado, stripey's, bait fish, bream, old wives, pomfreds, big eyes, taylor and much more...of course lots and lots of grey nurse sharks, seals, massive smooth rays, wobby's, PJ's, wrasse, eels blah blah blah...... All Photo's taken by Grant Willetts
All Photo's taken by Grant Willetts NELSON BAY APRIL 2009 OPEN WATER COURSE Congratulations to Kelly Morrison, Jacqui Scifleet, Kristal Woolley and Lynden Cockerill-Wright on the successful completion of your Open Water Course! With the unfortunate postponement of the Marine Studies Trip due to terrible seas and conditions at the start of April, the class was extremely disappointed and some of the Open Water students 'negotiated' to complete their course immediately after Easter instead of waiting until the Marine Studies trip. So, on Tues 14th April we headed to Nelson Bay for our pool sessions.
The group successfully completed their skills after much laughter and fun - (notably at someone's expense). Wednesday we headed to Fly Point for Dives FORSTER and 2 of the course. Viz was poor for the first 3 to 4m but under this is layer it opened up to a clear 10m. Water temp was a rather comfortable 22 degrees. After rapidly getting through our skills, we had plenty of time to explore the site and swim slowly amongst the large schools of fish that exist here. Between the two dive we completed almost 100mins of bottom time.
Thursday we shifted sites and completed dives 3 and 4 of the course at Halifax. Again 10 - 12m viz and 23 degrees. As training dives 3 and 4 are deeper our bottom was less but still around 40 - 45 minutes for each dive. No doubt the highlights here included the enormous fish schools at the outer bombies, the 'pied piper effect' with 100's of bream, wrasse, baby snapper, goat fish and damsels among others following us around. Of course the large friendly blue 'groper' (eastern blue wrasse) was ever present - often popping up immediately in front of students (read Jacqui) completing skills resulting in a rather short lived fright and then much laughter from Grant. Other sitings included schools of mado, big eyes, huge drummer, stingrays, spotted eagle ray, pipefish, morish idol, tailor, huge flathead, blind sharks, wobbygong sharks, green and mosaic moray eels, pomfreds, nudibranchs, octopus, butterfly fish....
FORSTER MARCH 2009 SHARK DIVING Over the weekend 8 divers and a non diver venture to Forster to dive with the endangered Grey Nurse Sharks. For some of the gang it was their first encounter with these beautiful and gentle creatures of the sea. Whilst the water temps and viz was a little down on what it had been along the coast a month ago we still enjoyed some fantastic diving and shark action. Shark watchers included myself, Phil, Annalea, Duncan, Jason, Jayden, Daniel and Scuba Smurf. A warm welcome also to Yang who joined us on the trip too. Additional congratulations to ANNALEA for reaching 50 dives! Well done ON A TERRIFIC MILESTONE - achieving it with the sharks is a great way to remember your 50th! Well Done.
NELSON BAY MARCH 2009 SOCIAL DIVING / OPEN WATER COURSE
CONGRATULATIONS to Jade Miller on her outstanding success in completing the PADI Open Water Diver Course.
Over the weekend we had the pleasure of teaching Jade Miller (from) Singleton and a very talented dancer from Hunter Performing Arts High School. Having previously experienced diving at the Phi Phi Islands in Thailand, Jade has proven to be one of the most natural divers I have seen. From the second dive of the Course, Jade was swimming with folded arms and no skulling or arm waving at all - perfect buoyancy control.
Although the water temperature and clarity had dropped from 2 weeks ago, with the quick completion of skills and long bottom times, Jade was able to experience much of what Fly and Halifax Points have to offer. Highlights included the very friendly Eastern Blue Wrasse (Blue Groper); schools of butterfish, bream, mado, roughies, stripy's, pomfred; two species of moray eel, blind shark, wobbegong, a dozen 1m long kingfish swimming around us at Fly Point, and many many more as those familiar with Fly and Halifax would know!
NELSON BAY FEBRUARY/MARCH 2009 ADVANCED OPEN WATER COURSE / UW DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY COURSE and SOCIAL DIVING
We have just spent a wonderful and busy weekend at Nelson Bay, with a mix of social divers and students completing Advanced Open Water and Digital Underwater Photography courses. Water Temperature was an awesome 25 degrees!!! Coupled with visibility between 15m and 25m it does not get any better than this! Completing the 'Deep' dive of the advanced course sitting on the sand at 27m off Halifax in clear water and 20m+ viz on the first dive, we new this was going to be a terrific weekend. Whilst diving on the Wreck of the SS Oakland in 24m we could clearly see the surface. Diving Little Wreck after the Oakland we had a school of around 20 spotted eagle swim by, whilst Josh and Jake saw a full grown adult turtle (that's almost a metre in diameter). Too add to the excitement, a dolphin swam past Jason, Jake and Phil at Fly Point on Sunday morning! CONGRATULATIONS to Josh O'Hara, Bridget Harvey and Jamie Pinnock for completing their Advanced Open Water Course certification and to Jason Nicholls for completing his Digital Underwater Photography Specialty certification. Additional congratulations to Jason for also reaching 50 dives! Well done ON A TERRIFIC MILESTONE.
NELSON BAY JANUARY 2009 SOCIAL DIVING We spent 4 days diving many sites at Nelson Bay. Shore dives at Boat Harbour, Fly Point, The Pipe Line, Halifax Point as well as boat diving on the Wreck of the SS Oakland and at Broughton Island - North Rock and the Shark Gutters. Whilst the visibility was not at its best (around 8m) and the water temp had cooled from the balmy 22 degrees in December, we were well rewarded with some outstanding diving with bottom times of well over Tues hour. Highlights would have to be the Striped Angler Fish and the Grey Hurse Sharks. The Angler Fish was now the third colour variation we have spotted at Nelson Bay. The colour variation pictured below on this trip and the previous orange and the black colour forms. Whilst we only saw one shark at North Rock, we were well rewarded with at least 8 different Grey Nurse at the Shark Gutters. Some were very up close and personal, eye balling us from a distance of about 30cm! This has really wet our appetite for the two trips to Forster and Seal Rocks in the next couple of months.
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