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.

swimming with the kings

An unexpected but welcome side-effect of my GoPro not firing up when I got in the water is a visit back to my neglected blog.

The weather forecast for this week had been pretty close to spot-on and after a couple of days of rain the weekend landed quite nicely. Yes, there was some early drizzle on Saturday but it was dog-walk-near-dawn early and the day cleared nicely to be warm and cloudless. As I'd walked Rowlf to Manly I had idly wondered if the word "drizzle" had made it it into Snoop's vocabulary; drizzle on my jizzle or some such. As it is I got a a bit wet before getting to Manly.

As I walked past the aquarium I saw how clear the water was. I was hoping to get in the water with my GoPro and things seemed promising. I wandered along the Corso to the ocean side and things started to look a little less promising for a dive; the surf was solid. Fairy Bower, where I had hoped to get in the water, was rather lumpy. Saturdy was for chores, so maybe it would drop off by Sunday, or even Monday when I'd be taking a day off work.

Sunday dawned clear, Sal set off for a walk to Manly (part of her training for next year's Everest Base Camp trek) and I hung back, driving the girls down a little later. We met Sal in Fusion Point, our semi-regular haunt, had some breakfast and then went to have a play on the beach.

While not as large as yesterday the surf was still pumping. I took some pictures - I think I took more of the girls than the surf - and once Harrie started losing the plot we packed up and headed for a drive along the beaches to the Bilgola lookout and a spot of (failed) whale watching.

Somewhere along the way I decided that today was the day to jump in the water. Tomorrow is not due to be as sunny, so the light would be at its best today, and as our builder started on our renovation on Thursday it makes sense for me to be around so I can answer any questions or simply get in the way. I plugged the GoPro in to top-up the battery, faffed around and then headed out, leaving Sal to do some packing while the girls did some sleeping.

My option was down to Fairlight or get battered in something akin to a washing machine. Fairlight had looked reasonably clear on Saturday morning, despite the rain, so I was OK with heading there. I suited up, applied some I-hope-this-prevents-my-mask-from-leaking vaseline to a top lip that has remained unshaven for over a fortnight and wandered down to the waters edge. It makes a pleasant change to not apply vaseline to my nipples crotch. It looked a bit green and murky. Ho-hum, I slid in and it was reasonably warm. And green and murky.

I'm not sure what the tide was doing but I seemed to get sucked out over the shallows, which saved some finning. There was a little bit of swell and small waves breaking by the pool, but conditions were good. The same could not be said for the condition of the GoPro. I tried all combination of the three buttons but it stubbornly refused to power up. On the plus side it hadn't flooded, so I guessed a battery-out-and-back-in restart would be needed.

Visibility was OK. By Fairlight standards. So visibility was pretty ordinary. I could see to about the top of the drop off and could see there were plenty of fish about. I dropped down through a large school of yellowtail. Towards the sand it went from reasonably murky to murky. I had a bit of a swim around and popped back to the surface. Futile attempts to get the camera to work were futile. The GoPro is so small that carrying it about is no big deal; I gave up on it and started to work my way along the small wall that is the Fairlight dive site.

Before long at all I spotted a couple of the Kingfih I'd seen last time I was here. OK, I don't know if they are the same Kingfish, but last time I was here and again today there were Kingfish, to about 2ft long, idly swimming through and probably scaring the shit out of the juvenile yellowtail. There were also old wives, blackfish, hula fish, lizardfish and wrasse plus the usual fixed life. It was, and with no photo or video evidence you will have to take my word for it, quite lovely.

I was feeling reasonably comfortable in the water. Despite the mukiness below the ascent was through some deceptively blue water. Milky blue, but blue nonetheless. One of the great things about short-stay freediving, the frequent trips to the surface, so I was having a great time.

I found myself in the middle of a good sized school of yellowtail as a Kingfish passed through. The yellowtail parted and it looked all very National Geographic channel. The Kingfish did a few turns and twice came within touching distance. So, without the aid of a picture, picture this; I'm midwater, hanging in the centre of a school school of yellowtail that keep parting and reforming as a Kingfish swims through. It was as close as I get to a religious experience. I forgot about holding my breath; that's not to say I took a lung full of water, rather that I was there in the water with the fish, not at all concerned that I needed to go back to the surface. I'm fairly sure that's a first. Eventually (ha! unlikely to be more that 2minutes) I headed back to the surface.

I worked my way along the wall and decided that I'd keep myself entertained by dropping right down on to the sand, which is only 8m away. I swam down through the murk, over a couple of small but nicely vertical walls and hit the sand at 7.8m. I swam away from the wall...and found the wreck. I came to the surface a few metres from a stand-up paddle board and chatted briefly to the rider whose opening gambit had been "have you found the wreck?"

The Fairlght Wreck is a small speedboat that sits just off the wall, as the more astute reader will no doubt have guessed from the previous paragraph. The thing is...I very rarely find the wreck. As it turns out there is a good reason for that; I've been looking in the wrong place. I took some bearings and dropped straight down onto it, marvelling at how rock-hard-water-man I am to sink through 8m of really quite warm but somewhat green water. I'll not be setting any records for freediving or hardness. The wreck - a small speedboat - seemed cleaner (in part) than I recall, more of the engine being recognisable as engine as opposed to crud-covered metal.

Very pleased with myself I decided 45mins in the water was enough and made my way back in as a dive school was preparing to enter the water. An especially inelegant fin removal kept them entertained; I'd timed my exit to coincide with a largish (by Fairlight standards) set coming through. I stood up, tried and failed to look cool as I wandered past them and headed back to the car to get changed.

And that was today in the water. Back at the car I removed the camera from the housing and the battery from the camera then replaced the battery and voila! It fired up. So I dried and dressed, took the now working GoPro back to the waters edge and clicked a few pics, including one that was of a water-creature (a sea hare) underwater. So I got a "underwater" shot in the end.

All in all a nice way to spend a couple of hours of an autumn afternoon.