d-d-d-diving Julian Rocks

Ah diving, is there anything else that is quite so likely to bet me a-blogging?

Quick bit of background - family gathering near Byron Bay. Sal's folks, siblings and all the grandkids having a get together as the UK contingent are down under for a holiday. Nine kids, 12 adults, The Old Church at Newrybar. Somehow I managed to get  free pass to do a couple of dives out at Julian Rocks, so I booked with Sundive and at a little after 7am this morning I was at the dive store. I'd dived with them before, probably 14years ago, so when they asked if I'd dived before I said...effectively no.

I was booked on for 2 dives and the group I was in had no newbies (hurrah!) By 8am we were on the beach as the RIB was launched, we hopped on and started the 10min journey out to Julian Rocks. The trip took a little longer today as we stopped to watch a passing whale that was maybe 50ft from the boat. There were a few albatross about, so before we'd got in the water things were looking good.

Arrived, moored, geared up, rolled off the side and descended. The water was a little chilly but certainly felt OK in my 3mm...yeah, more on that later. The water was a bit green and planktony but visibility was 6-8m which is fine with me. We started to the north (nw) of the rocks, somewhere near the sand gutters so we could head towards the Cod Hole, hopefully via some grey nurse sharks and then get picked up at the south (se) end, current assisted. Which made sense, because there was a reasonable amount of north-south movement. We're not talking drift dive, but strong enough that swimming against it for too long would require a bit more effort than you'd want.

Julian Rocks are really quite pretty. The colours were a bit muted in the milky water, but there is plenty of fixed life and you can tell it would really pop in clear water. Fish life was pretty good - schools of jewfish, a couple of moorish idols, anemone fish, cleaner wrasse, grouper and plenty of wobbegong on display. I clicked off a few pictures as we bimbled around.

Traveling with only hand luggage, I had dug out my old TZ5 and its housing. I think I last used them about 5years ago so figured they'd either be OK or if not then it was not too much of a loss. As it turned out the camera and housing were fine. As was my old Citizen watch that had also spent much of the last 5years in another draw until Sal had the battery replaced for me and it failed its pressure test. Seems that it is just fine to 22m though, which is good to know.

I'm not sure of the sequencing, but let's say we saw the 3m wobbie and massive turtle just before our dive guide pointed out the first grey nurse shark - the stars of the show that we were all there to see. One become 2 and then 3. They were close but not too close as we dropped down onto the sand so not to spook them.

Happy divers all around, we moved on and found more wobbies (there were a load of them), and a lot of the other usual suspects on the way to the Cod Hole, a nice little swim through. Just after that we found another few grey nurses, so again we dropped to the sand.

I'd not been that close to the first group but this time I found myself in the prime spot. One in particular started to drift up behind me, getting close...and closer...and closer. He had a remora on his head, a few small fish hanging out and needed some dental work. He probably got to about 3ft above me. Really quite special.

I was going to get out of the way so one of the other guys could get some good idea, but he motioned for me to stay in place so he could get some perspective on how big this shark was. One of the video guys was a little bit off of the sand and the shark got a little irate and with a crack of its tail changed direction and swam away. It had been a special experience though.

From there it was a bit of a gentle bimble upwards and towards the surface. The 3mm was starting to seem like not such a good idea by the time I got to the surface, and back on the boat I was a bit
shivery. The guy next to me said he was still toasty warm, but hey, a 7mm wettie helps.

A little post script; as we got back to the beach we saw an echidna waddling along around 8ft  from the water. Clearly lost, our skipper picked him (her?) up and relocated her (him) to the scrub. Crazy critter.

Back at the dive store and I'd lost all feeling in my now-very-yellow-and-blood-free fingers and toes. Back in the day I would have powered on through, but I'm getting sensible in my old age so decided to can the second dive. I should really have done the morning and afternoon dives instead of booking the back to back(ish) morning dives. And hey, dive one had been great and the bacon and egg roll plus large cap topped the morning off nicely.