Feeding the fish...

We couldn't sleep very well last night. Danielle was awake before 5.30AM and went for a walk on the beach. She had some strange dreams about diving the next morning. I have to admit that I did too, a strange aprehension but that didn't woke me up at 5.00AM, Danielle did :-)

When she came back, around 6.00AM she told me that walking in the beach at that early time of the day was a beautiful experience and she wouldn't mind waking up early another day :-o (you can imagine my surprise, Danielle, waking-up-before-10-am-should-be-illegal-Danielle). She also said that the surf was big but I didn't pay too much attention, it was 6.00AM and I was sleepy.

Around 9.30AM we talked to our friend Kath, she wanted to join us on this dive but we were not sure that we could find a slot for her but we did, which was good.

From the shop we went to Rose Bay, with 11 other divers (including the divemaster), where we boarded the ship, a medium sized diving-fitted vessel that would take us outside of the heads and go south to Magic Point (south head of Maroubra beach). The swell was indeed quite big, around 3 meters, which was way taller than our small ship! We were bouncing up and down. Of course, before we left, we took some tablets for sea-sickness. The way down to Magic Point was OK, the wind was blowing from the east, which is unusual. The problem with easterly winds is that they bring Blue Bottles (or Portuguese Man o' War), which have tentacles that can be up to 10 m long!!! And Kath is allergic to them! The good thing is that they float, so as soon as you are underwater, then you can avoid them. The tentacles drift with the swell, they are not so heavy to sink to the bottom.

As the boat got closer to Magic Point and slowed down, I started to feel quite sick. I know I get sea sick, I have always known that. So it was not something that caught me by surprise. And, to be honest, in 3m swell, I expect that to happen. So, indeed, I fed the fish, a few times. So did Danielle. But we wanted to dive and so we did. We jumped into the water. While we were just checking that we were ready to descend, Kath got stung by a Blue Bottle on the neck, fortunately she was OK, it was just a rash but it could have been worse. Dan's tank slipped, so did Kath's. It seemed like we would never be able to descend. When we finally went down, the visibility was extremely poor, less than 2 meters! I was still sick as well, which didn't made the whole experience more pleasant. But we both overcame the sickness and went on with our dive, which took us to around 18 meters of depth, which is the maximum that Danielle should go ... I did some deep diving before, so I could have gone a bit further but since my "buddy" couldn't, I just didn't.

Despite the terrible visibility, we saw a few school of fish and a few blue gropers. After a few minutes, we got separated from the main group, it was only 4 of us. We looked a bit for the rest but since we were 4, we decided we should continue, we suspected that the rest just decided to go another way. After around 30-35 minutes, I only had 50 bars left of air, so it was time to surface and so we did, slowly coming up. We stopped for 3 minutes at 5 meters, which is the recommended safety stop and when we came up, we were quite close to the ship. We got back and ... again, got so sea sick when trying to get on the ship, that I had to feed the fish ... several times ... It was terrible, I couldn't actually enjoy anything.

After we picked up the last divers, we headed up to another location, called Shark Point but I couldn't go diving, I was too sick. Danielle and 5 other divers decided not to go as well. I wasn't the only one sick :-) Kath did go again and she told us that the visibiliy was better than our previous dive. At least one of us could still feel like diving and enjoyed it.

On the way back (ahhhh! I felt so much better as soon as the ship started moving again), we spotted something strange on the surface ... a fin ... a BIG fin ... No, it's not a dolphin ... definitely not a shark ... OH MY GOD!? A WHALE?! Actually TWO whales! It was so amazing! This was the first time I ever saw a whale! I just forgot about my sea sickness and enjoyed every second! Just in front of Cogee/Gordon's Bay. Something unbelievable!

We came back safe, as soon as we passed the heads and entered the harbor, the swell was gone and it was really pleasant. I wished I could have felt that way all the time but ... seeing two whales was worth it!

/B