Just another Swiss in Australia

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

swissinoz — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 01:21:24 +0000

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.
We started off in south-easterly direction, passing parts with rocky bottom and kelp forests. Once in a while we swam along small reefs with overhangs and large overgrown boulders. After 15 minutes we followed a rocky path to the east and ended up on a large sandy patch. I had never seen a weedy seadragon before around Cronulla, but there it was! Not too surprising actually when looking at the surroundings – sandy bottom with kelp forest close by, depth around 12m…
After this encounter and a few shots we swam back due WSW until we were back at the shore, there we turned north until we got back to Pete’s Point.
This was such a relaxing dive! Pete’s Point offers massive schools of fish, varying underwater landscapes and room for exploration. Apart from thousands of schooling fish and the weedy we saw a massive bull ray, PJ sharks, nudis…all there!

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

swissinoz — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:40:28 +0000

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)

swissinoz — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 23:13:15 +0000

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.
We geared up and entered the water on a spot SW on the platform as the obvious entry straight south seemed to be a bit too rough. We swam a few meters off the wall and dropped down. Considering the distances covered on this dive I would probably snorkel out another 30 m before dropping down the next time. Diving south along big boulders we enjoyed reasonable visibility. This changed drastically once we dropped down to the sand bed and started making our way east. We hit what looked like a wall of particles, and that was it in terms of visibility for the rest of the dive… We swam along the sand bed with walls and boulders to our left. After 25 minutes we turned around and it took us another 35 minutes to get to the exit point, a boat ramp on the west side of the point. It is definitely worth monitoring the air consumption closely on this dive!
The fish life we encountered was promising, with good visibility North Bondi would be an excellent dive spot. Nudibranchs of all sorts, weedy seadragons on the sand bed, cruising PJ sharks…and at the very end of the dive in the shallow areas we were circled by a school of yellowtail kingfish.
The next time we dive here we will make sure that we have indications of where to find the caves and long swim-throughs, but even without and with bad visibility it is clear that this dive site has a lot to offer.

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

swissinoz — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 13:12:19 +0000

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′)

swissinoz — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 12:55:26 +0000

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…

View away from Sydney Opera House

swissinoz — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 03:34:52 +0000

Sydney Opera House is an enchanting construction, and ends up on thousands of pictures every day (does anyone have a good estimate for that number?!). Much less attention is attributed to the street light just next to it. I like it.

Big Wave Surfing in Cronulla

swissinoz — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 02:19:00 +0000

The forecast for the weekend suggested strong S/SE winds with 3-4m surge coming in from east. This type of conditions has a strong impact on almost any of the dive spots around Cronulla and the eastern suburbs. We decided to stay dry – for good reason, as I found out on Sunday. The weather was not as miserable and we went for a walk along Cronulla esplanada. The waves were certainly reaching a height of 4m, and a few guys on their boards were showing off. Quite impressive, I must say! I attach a few pictures.

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

swissinoz — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 02:53:03 +0000

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. After 10 minutes Gypsy decided that the surroundings did not look similar to what she remembered and we turned back west and then in roughly southerly direction towards Oak park, following a small ledge. On the way I saw a lazy PJ shark. We turned around after a while, back along the ledge and a bit further, then east again following a larger ledge. I enjoyed this section of the dive, swimming between large boulders, looking into cracks and crevices. Just after turning back west to swim back to shore Brad discovered a spotted wobbegong, and on our way we were almost swum over by another PJ shark. All in all a rather chaotic dive in terms of the pattern we swum, but it was very enjoyable indeed and was actually a nice overview of what this spot has to offer. Almost every dive I did there had something special to offer…

Shark Point (#274, 16.5 m, 53′)

swissinoz — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 13:02:13 +0000

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.
From the entry we swam roughly towards south with a wall at our right shoulder. The first thing I discovered was a coloured particle which turned out to be a nudibranch. I have never seen a blue devil as small as that. Cute! It landed on Matt’s glove and wouldn’t want to let go anymore. He finally convinced it to change location and find a spot on he wall. We swam further south along the wall and after 15 minutes we to turn west and to follow a crack leading to a depth of about 8m. A wall (likely to be the main massive of the Point itself) was heading off NW, we kept following some boulders and small ledges further west. After 45 minutes we surfaced to have a look at the conditions at the exit – which was a fair bit north of our present position. The rest of the dive we swam due north, passing boulders and kelp beds. The conditions at the exit were a bit rough, but the sloppy rock platform at the exit was overgrown and nicely soft.
Despite the limited visibility (I had to start shooting macros rather than practicing wide angle shots as intended) the dive made clear that this site has a lot of potential. I have only seen a small fraction of the whole spot, and I will definitely be back to explore it more.

Canon G9 Underwater Photo Gallery

swissinoz — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 08:42:48 +0000

For those of you looking for sample pictures to evaluate the Canon G9 performance underwater:

- I have put a collection of recent shots on a separate page.
- my camera setup and the settings I use can be found on this page