Though most of my content to date has been about running, I do in fact do more diving than running. I’ve been diving for about 10 years now and teach it during the summer at home. Most of my holidays in those years have either included a couple of dives or have been entirely devoted to underwater adventures.
So of course a trip to Australia would need to have some diving in there somewhere! The only trouble was where?! Not that there was any lack of choice, on the contrary the range of diving available is astonishing! I could take my pick from tropical reefs, to temperate kelp forests, wrecks, sharks, and the rest! Without infinite time, I chose to kick things off with some shore and boat diving in Nelson Bay, NSW.
The area around Port Stephens peninsular is stunning, beautiful bush (escaped the fires) surrounded by beaches and little towns.
The 1st dive I did was at Fly point, a nature reserve not far from the town. I met my guide at Lets Go dive shop and took a van to the site, nice easy kit up and entry. The visibility wasn’t fantastic but it felt like home with a green tinge and similar temperature! It was strange diving in the same conditions as at home but having all the exotic Pacific fish around! Its always nice to go somewhere where the fish names are unknown to you, at home I know every fish species pretty much, but here its all new. The dive was shallow, only 15m along shelving bottom where the life was hiding in the cracks, this sort of dive takes a lot of slow looking to fins the cool species. You could just stay in a small area and keep seeing things like nudibranchs.
The next dives were at Broughton Island, about 45 mins boat ride from Nelson Bay. We started early with an 8am meet, sorted out gear, loaded the dive boat and were off to the island with the dolphins. The dive site was on the North side of the island, again shallow at 15m. We descended the anchor line and made our way into a long gulley about 5m wide and deep. There we moved slowly along the wall and then the sharks appeared!
They were grey nurse sharks, beautiful bronze silver skin, lovely sweeping bodies and tails, and some very sharky ragged teeth. Silently, they cruised up and down the gully, coming closer and closer to investigate the intruders to their area. We sat and watched, and took photos and breathed our air with excitement, knowing there was little risk of attack by these sharks. Some of the animals were small, only just over a meter long. Some were massive! Sadly there was one individual that had a long line and hook in its mouth, we kept seeing this one circling around, but there was nothing we could do there and then to help it.
After a surface interval we were told that it was too rough to go around to the other side of the island for our 2nd dive, so we would have to do that one again! Needless to say nobody minded!
I’ve seen a fair few sharks in my time diving all over the world, reef sharks, thrashers, oceanic white tips, etc the feeling doesn’t change, when you see the outline, the colour, their eyes, you get the feeling that you’re privileged to be sharing that moment with the oceans apex predator.
Next stop, more shark dives up the coast at Southwest Rocks.
Stay tuned!
Fun Once Its Done 