PRO DIVE Lord Howe is officially open for the season!

During our 2 month break we have had the opportunity to do some amazing diving from North QLD’s Coral Sea to Southern Victoria’s town of Portland while catching up with some great friends and meeting new ones along the way.

Coral Sea

We started with a scenic flight out to Lizard Island to meet our boat the Spirit of Freedom and begin our journey out to the Coral Sea. On our first day we motored out to the Ribbon Reefs for 2 great dives.

After a long and rough night (no sleep and lots of sea sickness pills for Lauren) we woke to a bang on our door and Sheppo (our trip director) yelling “DIVE TIME”.

Here we found ourselves faced with a perfect sunny day and great diving conditions on the Osprey reef.

Our favourite dive site on the trip was Stephen’s Bommie because it was very similar to a dive site of ours “Ball’s Pyramid”. The crew on board the Spirit of Freedom were absolutely exceptional, we would like to thank them and also the great friends we met on board.

Townsville

From here we hired a car and drove from Cairns to Townsville to see 2 of our old friends and fellow divers Kathleen and Andy. As it turned out Tas was very pleased to hear Kathleen works next door to the Townsville Aquarium, so this is where we found him each day after she was able to give us a guided tour.

On our second day in Townsville and after much organising and researching on Kathleen and Andy’s behalf we made our way down to Adrenalin dive to book on to dive the S.S Yongala.

Once again luck was on our side when we found ourselves with yet another beautiful day and perfect dive conditions. The journey out to the Yongala was long but was more than worth it!

The S.S Yongala has a fascinating history and is an amazing wreck itself but with the overwhelming array of marine life this is truly a fantastic dive site.

We highly recommend Adrenaline Dive for a trip to dive the S.S Yongala with the continuous flow of food on the journey and the great speal on the ships history, they know how to make a great day of it.

Many thanks to Kathleen and Andy for such great hospitality and showing us the sites of Townsville, not to mention the great day on the Yongala followed by Andy’s suggestion of a glass of wine and sunset. It was perfect!

Melbourne

From here we flew down to chilli Melbourne to catch up with my family and to check out a few cold water dive shops.

Portland

Our first stop was Professional Diving Solutions in Portland, Vic, where Narelle showed us around their store. We were blown away by the size and what they have to offer. We put on a presentation on diving Lord Howe for their local divers and talked over a couple of beers and pizza in their fantastic little dive bar.

Narelle managed to convince me that 12 degrees wasn’t all that cold and a 2 piece 7mm would be fine. So we went for a dive the following morning.

I must say it again! We had great conditions.. However when I jumped in to be honest I was on the verge of getting right back out! I even called to Tas “Don’t Do It” he just laughed and thought I was joking. I was freezing and have always had this theory that cold water diving just isn’t worth it.

Well was I wrong! We had a great dive, having never dived with kelp before. We saw many different things including massive fossilised shark’s teeth.
Narelle took me around showing me where to look and between the two of us we found about 20 or so. Tas got most of the dive on video and wasn’t able to collect many himself, so he just claims mine!

The dive was well worth the initial  hypothermia I was sure I had. Once you get down there, you get so excited over the many things you see and very focused on sharks teeth that you forget that you are diving Victoria in the middle of winter.

Many thanks to Narelle, Vaughn and their two gorgeous girls for their wonderful hospitality. Look out for Narelle’s article on Sharks teeth in the coming issue of Dive Log. And No we can’t tell you where to find the teeth. Sworn to secrecy!

We look forward to Narelle, Vaughn and their local diver’s from Professional diving solutions joining us over here for a dive trip in September 07. We have already planned that our next trip to Portland will be for much longer as Narelle tells us there are many more sights for us to explore! (in a drysuit-Tas) Can’t wait!

Sydney

Here in Sydney we managed to catch up with a few more fellow divers. Our first port of call was PRO DIVE City store where along with Mikey we arranged another presentation on diving Lord Howe. We were just amazed with the number of divers who turned up (well done Mikey). Mikey will be bringing a group of them out for a dive trip in December this year. There are a few seats available so hurry to book.

Nelson Bay

Mikey managed to drag Tas out of bed at 3.30am for a dive at Nelson bay (no chance of me joining them at that time in the middle of winter). They tell me it was a fantastic trip and both assure me it is worth getting up for, I think next year they will just have to make it later in the day for me.