Pete’s Point aka Windy Point (#280, 12 m, 57′, 15 °C)

Pete’s Point (Windy Point) in Cronulla is the small brother of the Oak Park dive site. The reef to the south-east eventually joins with the second Oak Park reef. The parking is on Rostrevor St, three streets north of Jibbon St (Oak Park). After gearing up there is a small grassy patch leading to the esplanade, from there it is a short way down to the Point itself. The best entrance and exit is on the south side close to the very point from an overgrown sloping rock. What I like most about this dive site is that there is really a lot of terrain to explore. I think I never did the same dive twice here yet.

Bare Island night dive (#279, 7.9 m, 43′, 15° C)

Last Tuesday was time for my first Bare Island night dive (will try to repeat that experience tonight…). The conditions had been rough for days, and the one option to dive at Bare Island was the west side. We started from the boat ramp on the island itself. The visibility was only 3-4m, but good enough for a pleasant dive. We crossed the sandy bottom to the west and followed the reef further, eventually turning south around a corner and then south-east. Despite the low visibility I had a terrific dive. I spotted my first striped pyjama squid, took a picture of what I was told later were mysids (mysidacea), had a Port Jackson shark almost swimming into me because it was so excited about the modelling light on my strobe… Ok, I let the pictures do the talking now

North Bondi (#278, 18.6 m, 60′, 15° C)

There are still many great dive sites around Syndey I was not able to dive yet. One of them was North Bondi, and last Saturday Matt and I decided to give it a try. At 7.15 in the morning we just scored the last parking spot above the dive site. Whereas most of the cars there probably belonged to residents I was still surprised about the amount of people on Bondi Beach or in close by cafes at that time of the day.

Oak Park night dive (#277, 9.1 m, 37′)

The few recent night dives I did with the ProDive crew took me usually to Oak Park or close by, and this week it was not different. Oak Park is a dive site I can dive many times without getting bored though, it offers so many possibilities! More by accident than planned we chose to follow the ledge taking off the main wall not too far into the dive, and that’s where we spent our time until we had to return due to a leaky Octopus and consequently considerable air loss. I love the small overhangs on the ledge, incredible what kind of critters are hiding there during the night. For the first time I also saw a blue dragon at Oak Park – a bit irritating though, as usually I don’t see any nudibranchs during night dives. In terms of photography there’s not much to mention. It was only my eigth or nineth shot (trying to get a cruising PJ shark into focus…) when my strobe run out of battery – my fix of twisting the japanese battery charger with a set of pliers has apparently not worked 100% yet .

Bare Island east (#276, 9.1m, 74′)

Matt, Mogens and I jumped in on early Saturday morning on the first day with summer like temperatures – that is, outside of the water. The 16 degrees water temperature did not prevent us from taking a long photo dive. We entered the water on the left side of the bridge and crossed the channel to dive the east side of Bare Island. We did not get too far though, once we arrived at the nice wall with lots of nudibranchs we simply got stuck as all of us had brought photographic equipment along. The visibility almost uniquely allowed for macro shots (the PJ shark picture was about the only exception), and that’s what we did for almost 75 minutes underwater…
It was a great start in the day, and what a difference to dry within minutes in warm wind rather than freezing badly due to a cold breeze as it had happened only two weeks before…

Pete’s Point night dive (#275, 9.1 m, 41′)

I almost thought the fate of last week would repeat itself, but in the end I found someone willing to join me for a night dive. Gypsy, Brad and I entered the water at Pete’s Point aka Windy Point in perfectly calm seas. The aim of the dive was to find a distant reef Gypsy had discovered some time ago which no one else had been able to find ever since. We entered the water on the south side of the Point and swam straight out in easterly direction.

Shark Point (#274, 16.5 m, 53′)

It is hard to believe, but it took me 1.5 years in Sydney to finally dive Shark Point in Clovelly. The spot is considered as one of the best dive sites around Sydney. The sea has to be fairly calm though for a safe entry and exit.
Matt and I entered the water at the fissure a bit back on the left side of the point and descended fairly quickly to a depth of 15m. Since Matt had not dived the spot too often himself we stayed rather shallow, making sure that we would arrive at the exit on the other side of the point with a conservative air reserve left in our tanks. The visibility was rather disappointing with a lot of heavy particles present. It looked as if the seas had been rough the last few days.

Oakpark night dive (#273, 9.1 m, 49′)

The night dive at Oak Park on Tuesday passed without much excitement. I had decided to go for a dive rather than an underwater photography trip and shot only two pictures. Quite incredible if compared to my recent dives since I got the new equipment! We saw a few little critters and at the very end I discovered also a moray eel. No time for pictures though as my buddies were disappearing in the dark….

Encounter with a humpback whale at the Steps (#272, 11.6 m, 58′)

To state this from the very beginning of this post: the dive I did on Saturday will be one I won’t forget for my whole life. After almost three weeks of flu an cold I finally hit the water again (just to end in bed again the next day…), we decided to dive The Steps in Kurnell to hopefully take some good shots of the weedy seadragons. We found our first victim very quickly and got our cameras going. On the way towards the Leap we saw a few cute nudibranchs and while Matt was entertaining himself looking for seadragons I discovered an octopus and started shooting close-ups.

Bare Island (#271, 10.1 m, 75′)

Apart from the SW wind we found excellent conditions at Bare Island. The water was 15 degrees, still reasonably warm, at least if wearing a 7mm semi-dry.
I jumped in with the crowd of ProDive and did my own little photo dive. Two minutes into the dive I found a little octopus hiding in a small crack, along the east wall there were tons of nudibranchs, two PJ sharks, a second larger octopus…all there. If I hadn’t told Dan to start getting worried if I wasn’t back after 75 minutes I would have stayed forever… especially because I met the small octopus again, this time sticking its head out of the hole…