I've been living in Queensland for 4 years now and haven't participated in my favourite pastime of scuba diving since moving to these shores; that was until yesterday, when I got my shit together and made a real effort to get back into it. Firstly, I have Deb to thank for buying me two dives as part of my birthday present back in January, otherwise I would still be procrastinating about how long it has been since I got narced. The dives were only valid for 6 months and I had forgotten all about them until last week and as I didn't want to waste the opportunity and work was quiet, I decided to go for it.
5.00am Dragged myself out of bed and packed up the essentials.
6.00am left for Mooloolaba on the Sunshine Coast.
7.20am Arrived at the dive shop.
8.30am Loaded up the boat and set off to the dive site.
I took my watch off and had no idea of time after that, but it did take about 30mins to arrive at the drop zone. We got ready to take the plunge into the cold water.
Dive I
43 mins bottom time
Max depth 24 m
Temp 22c
My 5mm wetsuit was a tight fit last time I wore it and now it's so tight that I started to hyperventilate for a while.
The instructor got me to brush up on my skills on the descent line by performing the mask clearing and mask removal test, followed by buddy breathing and reg recovery before starting the dive for real. I got my breathing under control and felt very relaxed as I tagged along with the lovely Cheryl. She took me on a guided tour of the outside of the ship but there wasn't much to see. Maybe I have done too many great dives in the Red Sea on wreck safaris but this ship was only sunk two years ago and it shows. The fish have moved in but there is no colour in barnacles and bi-valves. There isn't any sea weed or hard corals but the visibility was excellent, at least 30m which you would hope for this time of the year. The down side is that good visibility and cold water go together so it's a bit of a hard choice for me as I hate anything cold.
When I ascended from the ship and climbed on board the dive boat it was such a relief to feel the sun on me again. I ripped off my top half and soaked up some cancer rays. The swell of the ocean on such a small boat combined with the smell of neoprene in the back of my throat made me feel all queasy. I had never been sea sick in my life but right then was too close to comfort. Everyone was talking about taking motion sickness pills and telling the German lad not to look down. He felt the same or maybe worse than I but we held our heads up and our stomachs down for the whole one hour surface interval.
Dive No. II
43 mins bottom time
Max depth 25 m
Temp brrrrr
My dive buddy was a 57 year old lady whose husband served on the HMAS Brisbane and she was more than familiar with the layout after almost 20 dives to date. We were put together because we were both good with our air consumption.
Linda had a camera which meant that she was going to go slowly and keep stopping to take photos.I like buddying up with photographers for this reason alone and she was great to follow around the many rooms.
I heard some divers tales when back on board but couldn't add anything exciting to the tales. My experience was only average but I did see some very large fish and some large shoals in a few of the rooms but nothing to write about. That doesn't mean that I won't do the dive again but it won't be for another few years. Firstly, I need a larger wetsuit and secondly much warmer water.
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