• Home |
• News |
• Photos |
• Diving |
• Flying |
• Travel

You are here: Home > Diving > Areas > Barron's Hut > Dives

Diving

Barron's Hut Dives

I've dived at Barron's Hut 6 times:

Dive number	Date	Site	Location	Area	Country	Wreck	Freshwater	Depth (m)	Bottom time (min)	Total time (min)	Divers	Quality	Summary	Equipment
379	18 Dec 1988	Barron's Hut	off Port Hacking	Sydney	Australia			25	27	30	Iain Hosking, Martin Zolfel		Out on Max's boat again, with Martin, Sarah and Alex (from EUSAC). Good wall dive, with lots of sheltered ledges, nooks and crannies for the wildlife, a cave running back into a chimney, and huge boulders it was possible to swim under. Lots of sponges, scalyfin (saw one chase off another), wrasse, a couple of groper, some worried sea urchins, nudibranchs and some beautiful branching soft coral - red with white coral polyps. Lots of Devonshire cup coral too. Very colourful - good dive, good food, good company.
480	4 Jun 1994	Barron's Hut	off Port Hacking	Sydney	Australia			26	30	30	Iain Hosking, Martin Zolfel		Out with Max again. Up at 5am - pitch black and cold. Left wharf 8am. Good vis. Blue groper, cuttlefish (2 foot long), box fish, wrasse, old wives, stripeys, morwongs. Good gorgonians. Heaps of after-dive food.	Used Max's tank (filled to 260 bar!) and BC.
485	3 Dec 1995	Barron's Hut	off Port Hacking	Sydney	Australia			26	32	35	Iain Hosking, Martin Zolfel, Sarah McCracken, Steve Harris		Beautiful morning - warm and sunny. Left Dolan's Bay Wharf at 10am and it was a short, comfortable trip on Max's boat Sea Tamer II to the site. Kitted up quickly and dropped in. My buddy was Martin but we dived in a loose foursome with Sarah and Steve (Sarah on her first dive since June, Steve on his first since February). Reasonable vis, 30 feet or more, and warm until we hit a distinct thermocline at 22m. There was a real gin & tonic effect where the warm current from the north hit the cool southern water. Martin led us straight to the cave & chimney, where we entered in the cool water and emerged a few metres up in the warm layer. We then covered the whole site, including several swim-throughs. One contained a moray eel under a rock, which appeared to be moving in on my finger. Sarah also saw what might have been a baby wobbegong in this area. There were plenty of fish, including several varieties of leatherjacket (including one with a big yellow spot on its side), scalyfin (frequently in energetic combat), old wives, yellowtail, blue groper and an eastern blue devil with vivid blue markings. We had time to see several nudibranchs too, including the common Bennets Hypselodoris (wine-red dots), Red-lined Flabellina (purple fronds) and Variable Aphelodoris (bird poo). The cup coral were also very pretty. After a precautionary stop (because we were on the limit of decompression according to Mr Aladin) we surfaced to sun, soup, salami and cheese & bacon rolls. Delicious. Still $30, plus a $10 contribution to Martin for petrol. Home by 2pm.	Dry suit, 87, Arctic etc. Found the leak as soon as I put my head under the water - a 1-inch tear in my neck seal which meant that the dry suit functioned more as a wet suit. I followed the progress of the water throughout the dive - down my neck, then down my chest, then arms and finally, on the ascent, into my boots.
487	5 Apr 1996	Barron's Hut	off Port Hacking	Sydney	Australia			28	29	33	Iain Hosking, Martin Zolfel		Out with Max again. Clear, sunny day. Water clear, blue and not choppy, but on a 1.5 metre swell. This made it difficult to dive close to the rocks, so we chose Barron's Hut again. I was quite happy with the choice, and also with the clear water as we descended. We saw 6-spined leatherjacket straight away (with the big yellow spot on the side) then a large (2-3 foot) cuttlefish, out in the open and quite relaxed. Going through the chimney it was nice to have good visibility for a change (because only Martin was ahead of me and he took care not to kick up the silt). After this we swam over the top of the rock (covered in sponges with the occasional nudibranch and Sergeant Baker) to the slab-sided gully. We were followed here by the blue groper but though they might be used to getting a feed from others they weren't getting one from us. In fact we saw no live sea urchins on the entire dive. We found another, smaller cuttlefish in a cave and watched him go through a range of colour changes. Other life: nudibranchs, basket star, crimson biscuit star, pretty lemon-yellow/blue fish. Began our ascent on the no-decompression limit and did a 1 minute stop at 3m.	Wet suit. Warm throughout the dive.
493	16 Aug 1997	Barron's Hut	off Port Hacking	Sydney	Australia			27	30	30	Iain Hosking, Martin Zolfel		8am departure from wharf. Up at 5am - cold & frosty. Only 3 on the boat - Martin and I, and Richard. Sunny, little swell. Vis OK, not great, but very pleasant to swim through the cave and chimney with no silt. Lots of Port Jacksons, a ray, leatherjacket, morwong. Saw a scalyfin chasing a Port Jackson. Mounds of grub afterwards.	Cathy's tank - too light, so damp. Add an extra 3lbs for my steel tank, 6lbs for an aluminium one.
505	9 Apr 2000	Barron's Hut	off Port Hacking	Sydney	Australia			27	32	34	Iain Hosking, Andrew Kennedy, Martin Zolfel		Another 8am dive, leaving at 6.15am and arriving at Dolan's Bay Wharf at exactly 7.30. At least with daylight saving ended we had light. Dived with Andrew, Martin and Paul from across the road. Good conditions - sunny with only around 1m swell. Vis reasonably good. Swam through the cave and then north to the split. Saw two 6 foot wobbegongs and two cuttlefish, as well as stripeys, leatherjacket (brown/black with yellow circles round the eyes), groper, morwong, bullseyes, goatfish (feeding energetically in the sand) and nudibranchs, one with orange spots as well as the usual dark red-spottedone. Usual Max Western feast after the dive, plus hot cross buns. Lazy afternoon.	Dry suit, no lifejacket (left it in the car). Too heavy with both weight belts, so too much air in suit, so too warm(!)