Starting to get really excited as we can pick up our camera for underwater photography this week. We’ve had to wait to within 30 days of departing for our overseas trip so we can get the TRS on it.

We are planning on getting a Canon G9 with the Canon housing. I thought long and hard about whethe to get an Ikelite housing however the Ikelite housing is more than double the cost of the Canon WP-DC21 and I would not be able to use the Ikelite without a strobe. As I am not planning on getting a strobe just yet, it makes sense to just stick with the Canon housing.

I can add a strobe to the Canon housing using an Optical sync cord. I can even add wet lenses if I get the 67mm lens adapter that is being sold on www.uwdigitalcamera.com.

So at the moment I am trying to figure out what Pelican case (watertight, shock proof and dust proof camera case) to get for the new setup. It will mainly be used to transport the camera whilst travelling and when on dive boats. I am planning on putting the G9 in the underwater housing, and the whole lot in a Pelican case.

Last weekend we got hold of some yoke converters for our Apeks regs from some generous members off the DiveOz forums. We took the plunge and converted our Din regs to Yoke. It was quite simple, unscrew the Din head with a hex key and screw in the Yoke head. We have a service manual for our regs and followed the instructions regarding installing a yoke.

Today was our first dive with the new setup and it worked quite well. We went to Fairy Bower, fast becoming our favourite dive site. My rig had no issues. My husband’s had small minute bubbles coming off the the first stage. He took off his BCD and inspected it. He made sure the yoke cap was screwed on firmly and this seemed to stop the bubbles.

All in all I was quite surprised at how easy it was to change. And to think we got quoted $120 by a mainstream dive shop to send it to them and they would then send it to Apeks to get replaced by an authorised service technician.

The dive itself was pretty good. There was limited visibility and no sign of any duskies. At times it was also quite cloudy overhead which dropped the lighting condition. However we still managed to spot the resident wobbegong, a school of yellowtail, some salmon, groupers and a ball of striped catfish. I really can’t wait to pick up the G9 and underwater housing and start capturing images from our dives.

We also saw an octopus that was in a rock ledge. It was pullin a shell towards it. Next to it I saw some type of crab with very very slender arms. I thought it was a spider at first but I think it was a crab. If only I had a camera!

I’m trying to find a new mask to replace my Tusa Spendive II. I like the size of my mask but I am finding that it leaks quite a bit so I end up having to purge it quite a bit.

My husband has a Cressi Penta which I’ve tried but found a bit big for my face. Although it didn’t leak as much as my current mask I did find that it was a little hard to pinch my nose to equalise.

I had a look at the Atomic Sub-frames a while ago and thought it was a good mask for me. I had a look again today, but also had a look at the Apollo metal frames and the Oceanic Shadown single view. I actually prefer the Apollos but they are even more expensive than the Atomics. And now I prefer the Oceanic over the Atomic. So I am leaning towards the Oceanic.

We bought some new dive gear from Leisure Pro and they arrived today. We have a trip planned to the Philippines in May and needed some tropical wetsuits. I got a Bare Velocity and hubby got a Cressi Summer. Both didn’t fit well so we plan to return them, hubby will get a larger size and I will change the Bare to the Cressi Summer for Ladies.

I must say, the Bare wetsuit is really really easy to don on and off. I just felt it was a little too thin and the arms are a little loose. The Cressi was too small around the arms and chest for my husband, hoping the next size up would fit better.

We also got some small stuff like a titatnium dive knife for hubby, a mini gear keeper for me etc. One of my favourite items is the Akona dry bag. Really well made, tough and not very expensive. We also purchased some dive bags to use on dive boats, Pinnacle Pacific Duffle Bag. These things are huge. Fits summer suit, BCD, regs, flippers, snorkel, boots, mask with lots and lots of room to spare.

We went out to Fairy Bower today to try and spot some dusky whalers. We’ve seen one on a previous dive but it was quite far in poor visibility. Lots of people have reported seeing them but we hadn’t had a really good encounter as yet.

We went in mid-morning. The visibility was quite good, atleast over 10 meters. We didn’t have to venture out far and we saw 3 straight away. They were only juveniles, about 1 metre in length. One of them had a hook in the corner of its mouth. They were stunning. We headed left of the beach and swam to an area that had a sandy bottom, and we just sat and waited. There were some blue morwongs and juvenile snapper scavenging around the weeds. And then the sharks came, the same three, cruising by us. It was amazing. I thought I would be scared but I wasn’t and I didn’t feel afraid either. It was just such a majectic experience.

It was a great dive and we saw lots of interesting fish. The visibility was great and the dive was a nice easy relaxed dive. There was some great photo opportunities (wish we had the G9), there was one in particular where I was on the bottom looking up at a swimmer (we were only in about 3m of water) and 2 duskies swam directly underneath him – awesome!

We went back in the afternoon and hubby thought he saw 7 sharks in one go. I only saw 4 at most.

But perhaps the best sighting of the day was… Valerie Taylor, prominent Australian shark and underwater expert. I felt so silly because I got quite excited being so close to an underwater world celebrity.

We headed out to Shellharbour today to do some diving at The Gutter. There was quite a bit of swell which didn’t make the dive much fun. We saw a big bull ray on the way back, which is one of the resident bull rays that seem to patrol the area. The dive itself wasn’t very interesting. However we were overly cautious and didn’t do much exploring as the last time we went diving in The Gutter (which was also the first time we went diving at that site) we nearly ran out of air and was faced with a long swim back to the entrance.

After lunch we decided we would do our second dive at the Gravel Loader. I was a bit daunted at having to swim out quite far to get to the first set of pylons. The entry and exit is just off the boat ramp. There were lots of guys going out spear fishing.

The swim out was quite uneventful. And the underwater landscape is quite barren getting to the pylons. Apparently there are lots of rock shelfs to explore but I think that is if you went directly out from the boatramp, whereas we turned left and headed out to the pylons.

Once we got close to the pier structure we descended. We followed the advice of one of the spear fishermen, who is also a diver, and took a course between the pylons on either side of the structure.

It was a pretty amazing dive. The pier structure is quite imposing and it is dark under the pier. There were loads of interesting things to see. Each pylon had a covering of barnacles and other growth. There were schools of very large puffer fish and at the end of the pylon, we saw about 5 or 6 giant calamari. They were amazing, I’d never seen them so large before. It was great hovering in front of them and watching them change colour. There was also one pylon in particular with a column of about 50 old wives – one of the most amazing things I’ve seen. I’m not sure why they were congregated in a column like that.

I would love to go back with an underwater camera to take pictures. It would be best if I had a strobe like one of the divers we passed. That may have to wait a while.

We went scouting for a new dive site today, our journey took us to The Steps at Kurnell.

We took my cousins for a drive to Captain Cook park at Kurnell. We stopped at Smith’s Seafood on the way to grab some fish and chips for lunch.

On the way home we stopped and wondered down to The Steps to see how easy it would be to access the site for diving – they don’t call it the steps for nothing!

We went to Shellharbour on the Australia Day long weekend to do some diving on the Saturday.

The first dive was at the Gutter.

The second dive was at Bushrangers Bay, an aquatic reserve located at the eastern end of Bass Point approximately 5 kilometres south of Shellharbour on the NSW South Coast. Declared an Aquatic Reserve in May 1982, it has a strict no take policy. It is recognised as one of the best scuba diving and snorkelling locations along the NSW coastline.

The view from the lookout:

Down at the water’s edge. Notice the pebble beach…

The walk up to the carpark.

Having recently gotten our PADI Open Water dive certification, we started scouting around dive sites in Sydney. We drove over to Bare Island to survey the area. It looks like a pretty good dive site.

There is a car park area at the top and a walk across a wooden bridge to get to Bare Island. Once across the bridge, there are some stairs to the left and entry to the site is via some rocks.

We visited on a weekend and noted lots of divers in the area. This group shown was getting ready to go in for a dive.

Divers at Bare Island

Not looking forward to the long walk across the bridge with our dive gear on!

Originally uploaded by Allerina & Glen MacLarty