Day 96 - 11th May 2010

We were at Crystal around 10.30.  Si sat down and started some UK work and I helped to finish some of the structures that were created yesterday, then helped move all the cement bases down onto the beach, so they were ready to be lifted up onto the longtail for the afternoon deployment dive.
The work on the Sydney harbour bridged was still going on and it was looking good.   Nathans friends had put in some really hard work especially when they're supposed to be on holiday.

After a short break for lunch, we tidied up the construction area and loaded most of the structures onto the Longtail along with our dive equipment.  The longtail was rammed full but didnt look as low in the water as it was yesterday.  So no chance of sinking today LOL

Our first job was to lower the cement blocks one at a time and then cement filled biscuit tins.  With these on the sea bed we took the framework (roof shaped) down and placed it in it's position and then swam back and collected the cement blocks with pvc uprights for the corner pieces and fixed those on.  So now we have a tower which fins with letters cut out of them will hang, spelling out 'Crystal'

61 mins later, we surfaced after a succussful dive and headed back.  Dive kits washed and put away and a general tidy up, we headed back home stopping on the way for spray paint for Si's bike.

At home, I got on with sanding various parts of the bike which Si had dismantled and Si fiddled with the electrics whilst carrying on with UK work.

Around 5.30, 6pm it was invasion of the mosquito's.  We bared it outside for around 15 mins but after killing a dozen or so, we surrendered and headed indoors.  Both very sweaty and covered in dust, we showered and headed out for a pizza and had an early night..

Trigger Attack!!

Here is Kat getting some loving by a Titan Triggerfish...

Enjoy!

SD

2 Dives

Hey guys,


Just a couple of dives but I had a camera in hand (for once!)

Please enjoy, and take note of the extreme coral bleaching at the end...


SD

Day 95 - 10th May 2010

The Junk Yard project (lasting for 3 days) started today.  We had more volunteers this time round.  The whole morning was spent making structures and cement foundations.  Nathans friends decided to join in and they're making the Sydney Harbour Bridge  ..I will put up some photo's soon.

Today the heat is overwhelming, even working in the shade we were saturated with sweat and all feeling really fatigued.  Around 12.45 the building work stopped and we prepared our dive kits to go out on the longtail and deploy the outer ring of the 'Tower of Power'  held in position with cement moulds that we'd previously made a week or so ago.   All went well, apart from the boat was weighed down so much by the cement moulds that I thought it was going to sink at one point ;-) 

With the outer ring in place, so we spent our remaining time fun diving.   Its astonishing as to how much life now lives in Junk Yard.  I counted 3 porcupine puffa fish, 5 Bristle Tail file fish, squid, clown fish, juvenile sweet lips, lots of wrasse, a giant clam on one of the benches and lots or sea cucumbers and urchins.  The best and most populated item down there is an old fin rack whch has a couple of lean to's.

At home, Si continued with UK work and whilst waited for uploads he took parts of the bike while I sandpapered them as we're spraying it black.  It's going to look so much better than the dirty white colour it is at the moment.

Tonight, we'll probably go out for food and have an early night as we both feel totally shattered.

Day 94 - 9th May 2010

Up and out by 6.45am we headed to Deep Down to collect our camera's and then onto Crystal to collect our dive kit.  The morning boat took us to 'Chumphon' where in the last couple of days, Whale sharks have been spotted.  Equipped with camera's we were eager to get in the water.  We had just under an hours dive saw a few moray eels, lion fish, a massive grouper, huge schools of smaller fish but no whale shark.  We were utterly disappointed.  I bet one's spotted there tomorrow when we're helping out with the expansion of Junk Yard (artificial reef) that would be just typical.

Our second dive was a 'Japanese Gardens'  Within a minute or two of being in the water, an eagle ray appeared and then another.  We couldnt believe our luck.  I got a few nice shots but when all the trainee videographers appeared and decided to swim after them, that put an end to any decent footage.  I just don't understand why they think they need to chase them (its a learning process for them).  Anyway, Karma got its revenge as one of the videographers, Kat got triggered.  I first saw the Trigger out of the corner of  my eye, it attacked Kats tank a few times before she turned around and spent a couple of minutes backing away from it whilst having her new finns bitten to pieces.  I'm not too sure that I would have been as calm as Kat.  The persistance of this Trigger was incredible.  All n all a very entertaining dive. (Trigger footage to come!)

Back on land we dropped of the camera housings, washed and put away our dive kit and headed home as Simon has a lot of UK work to do.

Later on in the evening we popped down to 'Vibe'.  Nathan was there with his family and a couple of friends from Qatar & Australia.

Day 93 - 8th May 2010

We met John & Andy from' Deep Down' at 'Zest' this morning for a debrief of the Documentary course, lessons learn etc  I think for the first Doco, it went very well, as you can see in the previous post.

This afternoon, Simon and I are both diving and with our camera's for a change.  It's seems like we've been out of the water for weeks.  We were both pretty excited especially with not having any fun divers to lead.     Todays first dive was at 'Twins'.  The visibility was pretty good.  In the water, we decided to search for the sea horses which we knew roughly where they were but have never actually found them as they are away from the main pinnacle. Ten or so minutes into the dive I spotted a Pipe fish, a long stickish looking creature then just a few meters away there was a little Cow fish just bumbling around on his own.  These fish really remind me of the small box fish but with horns  ...very cute. Simon will upload the vid.

Time just seems to fly when you're filming and towards the end of our dive we bumped into Jace, one of the videographers  who pointed out the whereabouts of the sea horse.  On our way over and to my amazement, I found another, just by itself blending in against a small rock.  They were much bigger than I had imagined, although different species do vary a lot.   If all I had seen the sea horse on that dive I would have been happy.

Our second dive was at the wreck just off of 'Japanese Gardens'.  I dove there a couple of weeks ago with Nathan for the first time but Simon hadn't. The boat itself, sank probably just under a year ago and the marine life that it's attracted in such a short time is incredible.  

There were 2 sleeping trigger fish inside, a yellow box fish, a puffer, schools of bat fish and sweetlips to name but a few.  We only spent 15 minutes there as we were close to hitting our no decompression limit and then had a 10 minute swim back towards the boat at 'Japs' in hope of seeing the Eagle rays.  Unfortunely we didn't see them but we weren't too bothered as the visibility was not that great.

On both dives sadly we both noticed an incredible amount of coral bleaching which is due to the rise in water temperature (32degrees)

This evening Si's working on UK edits and I'm doing some research into coral bleaching.

Documentary Course

Here is the video of my 1st doco course...

I think Andy (the student) did very well..