Diving

Dives

I've dived with John Arkwright once:

Dive number Date Site Location Area Country Wreck Freshwater Depth (m) Bottom time (min) Total time (min) Divers Quality Summary Equipment
488
Previous dive Next dive
First dive Last dive
7 Jul 1996 The Balcony off Royal National Park Sydney Australia 17 44 46 Iain Hosking, John Arkwright Four stars Up at 5am - cold (but not too cold) and dark. Left Valley Heights at 6am and arrived at Port Hacking at 7. Beautiful day - hardly a cloud in the sky. Sea choppy but only a slight swell. I was with Andrew Kennedy and Martin but John didn't have a buddy so I joined him. I jumped into the water first and had a bit of a shock with the cold water, and a reg that I don't think was performing up to scratch, so I hung on to the boat until my breathing had settled down to normal. We descended and turned left (south). Straightaway we saw a Port Jackson shark which didn't seem too bothered by us, probably because the viz was so good. Above us there was a shoal of yellowtail and beside us was a swim-through, and this set the tone for the dive. We covered a lot of ground, always in and out of overhangs, tunnels and caverns. with some lovely light effects so that I wished I'd brought the underwater (disposable) camera with me (that we bought in 1991 for the white-water rafting at Cairns). Always there were fish - bullseyes, leatherjacket, mado, old wives, blue groper, rock cod, sergeant major, scalyfin, eastern blue devil, a coral trout (or code? - beige with blue spots), wrasse, morwong and blennies. Although we were quite shallow for most of the dive (around 10m) the wave action was almost non-existent, and a fingertip was enough to hold on. The water was surprisingly warm, and I only felt chilly after 35 minutes or so. A nice, relaxed dive. (We would have been home by 12 if it weren't for the detour to Drummoyne for Andrew to return his kit.) Wet suit, 82, Arctic. No torch - all u/s due to flooding. Reg probably needs a service.