Dillon Pyron wrote:
[Default] Thus spake "dechucka" <dechucka at (no spam) vomithotmail.com>:
Got back last night from a weeks diving on the GBR out from the
Whitsunday's Islands. Great diving, weather a bit suss, will post a
more detail report later. May even post some photos if they are any
good ( from my standard that is not to the standard of some of the
great photos posted by members of this ng)
Who did you go out with?
I did the reef on the Spoilsport a couple of years ago in
July (Winter here). A couple of comments about the timing,
The big plus was that we got a chance to see Minkie Whales
fairly up close and personal. The go was to hang on the
mermaid line with a snorkel and let them come to you.
The bad news was that the seas were rough enough that
we didn't get out to Osprey Reef in the Coral Sea -- got
partway there and the Captain turned around because we were
rocking and rolling too much.
The Captain reconned that the absolute best time to do the
trip is November, provided you don't want to see whales.
The whale trips are in late June/early July. It's Winter,
but I was probably a bit over-warm in a 3mm full body
wetsuit. (But I've been OK in a 5mm 2 piece with a hooded
vest in 9 deg C water -- 48 deg F)
They have options for 3, 4 or 7 days on the boat. The food
was good and plentiful. And there was a lot of diving available.
In 6 days of diving, I managed to get 24 dives in, including
4 night dives. I probably could have pushed and got a couple
more. And there was one time when I just didn't feel right
so I gave it a miss. (It was a site that we had previously
dived.) And there were others who, when there was an "open
dive deck", minimised their surface intervals and doubled
up on dives compared to me. I used Nitrox and it still took
nearly 48 hours for the computer to clear to fly out, so I
was certainly maximising my diving.
They were really safety conscious as well, so you'd probably
do OK without an EPIRB. The boat moors at the location but
they've always got a big RIB ready to go to chase people down,
if necessary. The one time when people I was buddied with had
a minor problem I inflated an SMB an got an immediate response
from the lookout on the top deck.
We're planning a trip for 2011. When I went
in 2005 I just couldn't swing the time to go. And hauling a heavy
duty wetsuit for a day's diving south of Adelaide (what's the name
of the ex-Australian Navy ship sunk down that way?) We were there
in April, so it was starting to get cold.
The Hobart's a good dive. Did it back before I got the wreck
cert, so I was a good little Vegemite[1] and stayed on the outside.
And I've been jinxed ever since trying to get back on it. My
partner's parrents (who we visit every year) live about an hour
away from the marina where the boat sails from. But bad weather,
the boat blowing an engine, etc. and it's been 3 years of trying
with no success. Maybe this January.
Melbourne is getting the ex-HMAS Canberra soonish.[2] It's being
processed as we speak. Will be fairly shallow, as these things
tend to be over here. They try to drop them somewhere where
Open Water certs will get you on the top of the wreck. I'm
not sure that's a particularly good idea, even though it makes
economic sense -- there's a lot more open water divers than tri-mix
divers, after all. My concern is based on my assumption that there
will be a strong temptation for beginners to exceed their limits
and or overstay their air supply. But it should be there by next
year. The water's cold here, too. But not as cold as the Northern US.
Hope you have a good trip and spend lots of greenbacks to help
the local economy. :-)
-Don
[1] In the interests of adding a little colour to the language.
"good little Vegemite" Vegemite is made from the sludge of
brewers yeast from the bottom of the Fosters Brewing vats.
It's dark poo brown and salty and has a taste that you have
to grow up with to appreciate. I'm told it's nice to put an
*extremely* thin layer on a cheese sandwich, but I've never
tried it. (Remember that I'm a transplant from PA) Having
defined Vegemite, the product, in this context, the reference
is to a commercial from well before I arrived in Oz. Bunch
of kids running around singing, "We're happy little Vegemites,
as happy as can be, etc" Happy little Vegemite/ Good little
Vegemite have become part of the language. Hmmm... maybe
ya had to be there. ;-)
[2] RE dechucka's comment about cities getting ships with names
that don't match. The Canberra would have been a real problem.
I don't think that Lake Burley-Griffin is deep enough in any
case but trying to haul it a couple hundred kilometers overland
would have been a real bastard.
