i've moved HERE.
attended my first uni lecture of the year; campus was packed like anything, not at all like in hobart. FINALLY finalised my timetable, which is total, utter crap. 2 3-hr practical sessions back to back starting at 2pm and ending at 8pm. WTF! i had several time slots to choose from, of course, but i had to keep my thursday evenings & fridays free for work, & the others were fully bked, which left me with only the tues 5-8pm slot for genomics as the other option clashed with my marine science prac. was distracted during environment lect by 2 ppl who took turns at the front translating the lecture in sign language to one of the students, kept watching them do their thing instead of listening to the lecturer - pretty fascinating to see how quick they can translate all those technical terms shore dives with students on saturday at the Tweed; viz was terrible, about 1-2m at best. 23 deg temp, pretty cold compared to prev few times. no current though. woke at 4am on sun morning in preparation for boat dives at Cook island but found out that there were 3m swells at sea & the trip was cancelled :( also went back to hobart 2 wks ago, met up with friends, packed up & sorted everything out with UTas i need to dive more
narced & nearly bent
another awesome weekend on Big Cat Reality =D much better surface conditions this trip, so we werent stuck on Flinders all wkend. Gotham City! one of my fave dive sites, seriously. viz the worst i've seen at moreton bay - about 8-10m most of the trip, with a low of 2m at Curtin Artificial Reef & about 3-5 at the Pines. best viz of the wkend was the 2nd dive at Gotham City - 10-12m. fantastic diving with the boys - we all got a bit narced at gotham and someone kept shouting thru their regs. v funny to watch the boys climbing the pinnacles and pretending to hoist anchors. hit several thermoclines at gotham, being a deep dive. temp dropped to 21deg at one point, & i kept moving up & down to feel the temp diff - u cld actually see the shimmering edge of the themocline, pretty cool besides getting narced, i also nearly got bent. went into deco on several dives, 2 of them at gotham. 36m for 20+ minutes bottom time (not including ascent), dint do proper deco stops along the way. my comp was sending all sorts of alarms at me and finally decided to go into error mode on the second dive at gotham. not sure what tt means, since it was still working on the next dive, so i just ignored it. the others' comps were also flashing warnings but we wldn't miss the jock dive for the world so we all turned a blind eye. so we all went for the last dive without our wetties. fortunately it was a shallow drift dive & the water was a toasty 26 degs. lots of stingrays (fortunately none of them pulled a Steve on me, if not i wldnt be here writing this) & a huge bullray, as well as a wobbegong under a rock.
yeah, it's been months. frankly, i dun even noe why i bother brissy's still as gr8 as ever - the diving's gotten heaps better too! i'm up to 126 dives now, having done 32 dives in Jan itself... after the rains & cyclone weather of the past few wks, the water's been pretty much crap, with loads of rubbish being washed up every day. was at the tweed 2 wkends ago & viz was way down. did the bunker trip at the start of january - a gr8 beginning to 2008! got to go for free, of course, with only 1 student (doing his specialties) to look after, which meant i cld relax & enjoy myself. being part of the dive crew on Big Cat certainly has its advantages - even the occasional missed dive on acct of surface supervision isnt too bad, really - a bit of rest from 5 dives a day. the weather on the 5day trip was calm & near perfect, until the last nite when the swells just became massive & i was drenched sleeping on the top deck. then there was the wkend Big Cat trip, this time with a whole bunch of advanced/ specialty students, so the trip was rather rushed n very very busy for me. but i did manage to squeeze some dives in... even tho there were occasions i just wanted to throttle one of the students who was being such a whinging ass. i also lost my dive watch!!! but some of the divers found it on the next dive, which was gr8 luck! 2 more wks and sch starts. i'll be staying in brissy, having wrangled a transfer to UQ, on acct of the warmer weather & better diving here... also just moved to my new place - tiny rm, but within walking distance of campus, which will save me loads of time & money.
i dived with a dozen grey nurse sharks & touched leopard sharks! the former was at Cherub's Cave on the Big Cat liveaboard wkend 3 wks ago, the latter at Straddie last wk. the water's warmed up considerably now, abt 25 deg. viz on the last few dives have been amazing - 20+ metres! other than grey nurse sharks & leopard sharks, i've also seen: wobbegongs, lots of turtles, an enormous bull ray, crayfish, octopus, stingrays, eagle rays... no manta yet. did a wreck penetration at Cementco, a large barge of sorts lying upside down at abt 35mtrs. swam frm bow to stern and back thru its many rms, & even reached the engine rm with its huge turbines. wreck diving's awesome. also visited part of a plane wreck. specifically, the wing of a WWII fighter plane, sitting in 18m on sand. tt's where i saw a little baby octopus & a huge bull ray. caves & swim throughs - incredible. saw stonefish, scorpionfish, lionfish & huge grouper. next major dive trip: 4-9 Jan to the Bunker Group, southern Great Barrier Reef. Woohoo! only downside: it's gonna be a 6hr drive to Bundaberg, then a 5+hr boat ride frm there. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
in brisbane now. currently looking after the shop while the owner's out delivering tanks. also in the midst of doing stocktaking - checking items off on a 14-pg list! zzzzzzzzzz....... lots of OW students the past 2 wks, so i got to help out, esp during the pool session & open water dives. abt 7 more students starting next wk diving here's better than in hobart - much warmer water (~18-20deg) & generally better viz. hope to get out to flinder's reef which i hear is better than the gbr! mantas (!!!) & loads of sharks (!!!!!) there =D gtg back to stocktaking
less than a week till exams! 10 days till i head for warm weather & most importantly, warm waters!!! no more double layer 7mm suits & having to have someone else literally yank me out of a wetsuit! |
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