This image of an Australian Sea Lion was made in poor visibility at Narooma, in the south of NSW. Made using natural light only, it was used as a double page spread in an article published in the Scuba Diver Australasia magazine.

Made with a Nikonos V and 20mm lens on Kodak E100VS film.

Newsletter

Sign up for the BlueBeyond Newsletter

We value your information and will not disclose it without your consent.
Privacy Statement

Gallery Images

Quick Links

United Divers is our favourite dive shop

ILB Computing hosts Bluebeyond.com.au

Search BlueBeyond

Memorable Dives

Our original diving website, the predecessor of BlueBeyond, was called The Divesite. In this, we had a number of articles that I am currently resurrecting for our 5th Generation of BlueBeyond.  One of these articles was about Memorable Dives - those dives that really stand out as being unique for one reason or another.  As I glance back through these, on the eve of 2007, these dives really stick out from among the 1,000+ dives I've completed.  There are a few more, so in coming weeks, I'll add further short write ups to this page.

• SS Undola - 13 April, 1998
• Penguin Reef - 6 May, 1998  
• Camp Cove - 9 January, 2000
• Scuba Zoo - September, 2000

SS Undola - 13 April, 1998

Today we decided to head for the Tuggerah off the Royal National Park, but the conditions were perfect so Max (the skipper of Sea Tamer II) decided it would be a great chance to try for the Undola, a little further south, in 44msw.  You just know its going to be a good dive when a pod of dolphins arrives on the scene as the anchor is being dropped.

My buddies - Henrik and Doug - and I descended first, and the clear blue water presented a great start to the dive.  At 22msw the bottom came into view, and if it weren't for those pesky fish, the wreck would've been
clearly visible.  I was quite glad as I had been telling Henrik on the boat about how the southern wrecks were that much more "fishy" than those on Long Reef.   The Undola didn't make a liar of me today.

Max had asked us to check the anchor before the others came down, and the pick was nicely in the port side midsection of the wreck, but the anchor chain was draped around some features of the wreck.  Couldn't have done it better ourselves.

Heading off, we parted the fishlife and headed along the starboard towards the stern.   Passing the distinctive boiler, we noticed a wobbie tail sticking out of a netting, but it flicked a couple of times, and somehow I
think that particular shark knew of another way out.  It wasn't stressed about the situation.

At the stern, the fishlife was prolific - yellowtail, some huge morwong, tailor, bullseye, old wives, a couple of kingfish.  Doug and I rounded the stern, and started to head back towards the bow along the port side.
Reaching the midsection, we noticed Henrik had not come around with us!  Swimming back to see where he was, we found him sitting out on the sand, about 10m from the stern taking in the vista.

We resumed our swim along the port side, and crossing the mid of the ship, came back over the anchor line.  Continuing on, we came across one of the most famous of the Undola's landmarks - the dunny.  Although the cabin covering this head has long since gone, the dunny is still very firmly attached to the wreck.

Continuing on, we came to the bow, and looking under here, not only were there all the other types of fish described before, but a school of juvenile damselfish.  Tropicals on the Undola?  Oh well, I guess the water
temperature was 21-23 degrees.

Sadly, we hit our planned bottom time, and with one of the team at thirds, it was time to head back up to the deco bars. 22 mins on the bottom, and 25 mins of deco ahead of us.  At about the 32m mark, we looked back down to the wreck to see a large numbray.  Its hard to judge size from that far above, but it would easily be the largest numbray I've ever seen.

Sitting on the deco bars, the time passed quickly.  I for one was picturing this lovely wreck, and putting it all into perspective.  I was already imagining my next dive on the Undola.

Penguin Reef (Solomon Islands) - 6 May, 1998

In May 1998, 12 divers from United Divers visited Uepi Island and Honiara for a 10 days diving holiday.  Lucky enough to be one of this group, I experienced many great dives, but one will stick in my mind for years as a very memorable dive.

Penguin Reef is about 1.5 hours from Uepi, which is a fantastic dive resort with great diving that is a long way from anywhere else.  Its remote and its spectacular.  And the resort is great, and geared up for diving.  Most diving is within 10 minutes boat from the resort, but a couple of sites are expeditions from the resort, including the Sinkhole, and Penguin Reef.

Having been until recently the subject of an ownership dispute, we were apparently the first group to dive the Penguin Reef in 5 years.  Out to sea on the far side of Marovo Lagoon, Penguin Reef is a Pinnacle that breaks the surface from a 600m bottom.  The shear coral walls are nothing short of spectacular, and the growth and fishlife are superb.  This is a site for anyone who loves pelagics.

On arrival at the site, I threw my gear overboard and jumped in to put it on.  With just mask and fins on, I looked down to see patrolling whaler sharks coming to take a look at us.  On descending, the sharks, joined by their white tip reef and black tip reef cousins, took an unusual interest, although they weren't threatening, just curious. 

Swimming along the wall, one of the sharks made a bit of a bee line for Ken, but broke off in the sequence 2 metres from him.  Maybe it was me pushing Ken out of the way to get a better look that scared it off.

A few minutes later, the group (6 of us) was circled by a school of what must have been 1,000 barracuda.  What a magnificent site.

Some unusual nudibranchs, a 5m wide gorgonia and lots of tropical fish completed the picture in 30m+ visibility.

Finishing the dive in about 3-5m, I heard an unusual sound.   Thinking it must be a strobe recharging, I looked around, but no cameras were going off that often.  Then I realised it was dolphin song.  A magical sound, I hung out ar 3-5m as long as I could just to listen to it.

What a magnificent dive.

Camp Cove, Sydney - 9 January, 2000

As you can probably tell by my monthly updates to my Dive Log, I do a lot of diving, yet this Memorable Dives page is updated fairly rarely.  Its not that I don't have a lot of good dives, it just that a dive has to be pretty special to make it onto this list.  There are quite a few others that have come close, but the ones on this page were outstanding.

With that as a preamble, you may be wondering why Camp Cove of all places has made it to this list.  Well, its blown me away, but on 9 January 2000 I had a truly outstanding dive at this shallow beach inside Sydney Harbour.

It was only by virtue of the open oceans being undiveable that my favourite dive buddy and I ended up diving here.  We'd actually had a dive here the day before, and decided that it was certainly worth coming back, but we didn't expect the dive we got.

The day started off being a little overcast, and there were quite a few divers here, as most eastern Sydney dive centres were conducting courses at Camp Cove due to the state of the oceans.  We decided to dive the middle reef section of Camp Cove - entering from the eastern end of the beach, we started out on a north west bearing till we reached the reef.  Along the way we came across the anchor of a boat, and nearby found a $2 coin.

It was from here on that the dive got interesting.  We headed over to the reef, and after a short time heading along the reef (max depth 5.5m), we decided to take a perpendicular heading from the reef, and swam out across reed and sea grass to a depth of 8.5m.  At this point we turned to head back to the reef.

In a short distance, we came across a creature that I'd never seen before, a sort of "snakey-lizardy" looking thing (I'll attempt to identify this and update this page shortly).  It looked like a crocodile without legs.  It had scales, but wasn't a sea snake (I don't think).  It had a blunted off head, nothing like I'd seen before.  It was a pretty amazing sight.  After almost 800 dives, its a treat to see something completely new at a local site (especially one used mostly for training).

A bit further along, we stumbled onto an octopus, the first live one for my buddy.  Shortly thereafter we came across some longtoms, and then a porcupine fish.  Some more octopi in crevices, a pygmy leather jacket, mosaic leatherjackets, and lots of goatfish.

Towards the end of the dive, near the little jetty at the eastern end of the beach, in 3.5m a few metres from swimmers, we saw a dead fish that looked a bit odd.  We realised that it had been captured by an octopus and was being dragged back to its crevice.  Another first sight for me (and for my buddy)!  

So an important lesson came from this dive.  Never underestimate the potential of a dive site.  Camp Cove is one of the more popular training sites in Sydney, due to its ever calm, protected waters.  Anything more than a ripple would be considered big surf for this site.  For this reason, its often considered a boring site, but our experience shows that the potential is huge for a "muck dive" .  You just have to look.

My only regret - I'd chosen to leave the camera at home that day!

Scuba Zoo - September, 2000

During the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, I decided that I would spend at least part of the time away from Sydney, preferably diving.  So I decided that I would do something that had been in the back of my mind for ages - a liveaboard trip aboard Mike Ball's vessel, Spoilsport.

This trip had three places on the itinerary - Flinders Reef in the Coral Sea, the Outer Great Barrier Reef, and the wreck of the SS Yongala.  Unfortunately, conditions did not allow us to get to the Yongala, but that was okay for me as I have dived there before.  Some of the other divers on the trip were a little more disappointed though.

Flinders Reef is a fantastic reef complex about 220 mile NE of Townsville.  There are many fantastic sites out here, but a different type of dive for me was Scuba Zoo.  Scuba Zoo is quite simply a shark feeding dive, and is very tightly managed by the crew of Spoilsport.  Whilst I am in 2 minds about feeding of sea life by divers, this was certainly a spectacular sight, and since Spoilsport only conducts this dive once a week, and on differing days, the impact is minimal.  

As a dive site, Scuba is nothing special. Basically a flat, sandy bottom in about 15-16m, with 3 cages arranged in an L shape - 2 cages on 1 side, one on the other.  At the start of the dive, everyone drops down and takes up a position on top of the cages (inside if they prefer).  The crew then pulls down a metal garbage bin with lid on and holes in the side to allow the scent of the tuna to waft out.  The contents are large chunks of tuna cut up and tied to a rope, which has a buoy on the end.

For 20-30 minutes, the crew moves around towing the bin around and above the divers, with the aim of getting the sharkies to come closer.  The scent of the meat draws them in, and they really know what is going on.  They come within 1m or so on many occasions, allowing reasonable photo opportunities.  The sharks are mostly grey whalers, along with some Silvertips (a most magnificent creature).  From time to time other whalers and reef sharks also pay a visit.

After 20-30 minutes of this, the crew give a signal, and all guests move inside the cages.  The bin in then moved back to the middle, about 3m away from most divers.  The lid is released and the buoy shoots to the surface, with the bits of meat following tied off to the line.  The sharks make a bee-line straight for the meat, and in a few seconds the place goes from an adrenaline pumping state of anticipation, to a feeding frenzy, then back to a placid state.  After this the divers can then return to the boat, or look for sharks teeth.

The dive is stage-managed expertly, and is very safe.  It was exciting, but I can say that at no time did I feel threatened by any of the sharks.  Its an exciting dive, one that I'd recommend to people wanting to learn a bit more about shark behaviour.