This is my second time to use my new SeaLife DC500 Scuba Diving Camera. It will be interesting to compare these photos with those I take later on, once I’ve had more experience.
John and I got up early last Sunday morning to go down to Byron Bay in NSW for a couple of dives at Julian Rocks.
This is one of our favourite spots to dive so we were excited and I was looking forward to using my new camera too. It was only the second time for me to use it underwater.
We got our gear ready and put it on the boat as soon as we arrived at the SunDive shop at Byron. Ruth was there with the rest of the people from the Gold CoastDive Centre. It wasn’t long and we were driving down in the truck ready to launch the boat. The surf was high and it was a bitrough getting in and riding out there. Not too bad though!!
In the boat, we divided up into 3 groups, kitted up and fell back into thewater. It was warmer in the water than out of it. We all had an easy ascent straight down the rope, and saw some Wobbegongs down at the bottom. Oops! I was taking a photo of one, and nearly leaned on another. As usual at Byron Bay, there were lots of them!
Scuba Diving with Wobbegong Sharks
We hadn’t gone far when someone pointed and we all looked over! There was a very large Grey Nurse Shark swimming quite close to us. I had the camera ready and was just focussing on it, when John became mesmerised and wanted to get closer and closer. He went right in front of the camera and I couldn’t see the shark anymore. He must have been only a few inches away from it, and it swam off faster than I could focus again with the camera.
Here’s a nice Starfish -they’re easy to take pictures of.
This shot of the Blue Groper is not too bad, if I’d been a bit quicker I would’ve got his face.
Blue Groper while Scuba Diving at Julian Rocks, Byron Bay – a great Scuba Diving spot
We made our way down to the Cod Hole which is always full of Cod (ofcourse), usually a wobby, and hundreds of other little fish. This time we just passed through very quickly because some of us were alittle low on air. Our dive guide took us off to a little cave and inside was one of those gigantic Loggerhead Turtles. I nearly had a good photo until I felt someone pulling at my fin. Must’ve been time to go and I missed a good photo! Geez, I have to be really quick!!
Getting back into the boat was uneventful, except one of the divers dropped his weight belt, Ooops!!
We were taken back to the Dive shop, unloaded the boat, and it was time for lunch. It was breakfast for some- Eggs Benedict, Chocolate Mud Cake and all sorts!
We dried out in the sun for awhile and at last it was time to go back again!!
Thistime we went to a dive site called The Needles. This was quite a shallow dive – only averaged about 8 metres. We saw some pretty coral, although I didn’t get any decent shots of it with the camera. There were quite a few Turtles, here’s one of them, a Loggerhead.
Here’s our dive guide Nat, showing the other guys something. Not sure what it was, I was too busy taking photos of them. It’s so much easier to take photos of people isn’t it?
We had a nice long dive this time, 45 minutes, which was great!
I got a really good shot of John, my husband and dive buddy, he’s a bit scary isn’t he?
When it was time to ascend, a beautiful wobbegong rushed away from us. John went off after him for a minute.
Three of us made our ascent up the rope, and I started taking photos of John, since he was the only reasonably interesting thing I could see at the time. This would’ve been good except that John decided to turn upside down just as I focussed.
He’s almost as co-operative as the fish are!!
This turns out to be a very lucky story for me and my camera.
We got back to the boat and it was a bit choppy, so we wanted to get in the boat as quickly as we could.
I had my camera attached to the strap of my BC, so it couldn’t possibly fall off, unless of course the strap came undone. There was a lack of communication between me and the person who took my BC from me.
And, unknown to both of us, the camera fell off and sunk!! For a number of reasons, neither of us realised until we got back to shore and got off the boat.
It wasn’t until then that I started looking for it. Before that, I was quite content knowing (that’s what I thought) it was safe on my BC.
The guys from the dive shop radioed the other boat and asked if they could look for the camera.
I was in luck!! All the divers were still diving, but there were a couple of snorkellers who liked to Free dive.
They took it in turns to look for the camera and found it!! One of the divers fetched it for them when he got back from his dive. Whew!! That was good! I’ve learned a lesson, I’ll never let it out of my sight again.
Have fun Diving!!
Julieanne
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