Hi Whitney & all,
At the risk of turning this into a spam-fest I couldn't help but point out
that Nadia and I did the manta ray night dive in Hawaii earlier this year,
and another dive on the house reef. Whitney - thanks for sharing and I
will owe you a beer for what follows... Also any further discussion/debate
we'd better do on the Facebook group.
The vis in Hawaii was great and the dive was cool (ok, house reef is always
going to be a bit trashed) but I'd suggest that *the diving at Wilsons's
Promontory craps all over the dives we did or were likely to do (come on
the annual trip in a few weeks!).* Incidentally so does the wreck and
reef diving around Port Phillip Heads. At the Prom you can get your big
animal fix with playful seals on nearly every dive, colour like the great
barrier reef and plenty of kelp and fish as well. All in our own backyard
and I'm not even kidding. You might have to work a bit harder for it with
Bass Strait conditions, but you won't believe it until you see for yourself
what's down there.
Diving with the club is also about 25% the price of the boat dives in
Hawaii, and you can carpool there...!
If you still need convincing, look at these photos of a normal day
underwater at The Prom (the first one is of me!):
http://i2.wp.com/lizrogersphotography.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/20150523-IMG_3968.jpg
https://www.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.masasoft.com%2Fwp%2Fwp-content%2Fgallery%2F2013-11_Wilsons_Prom%2F2013-11-02_Skull_Rock%2FSkull_Rock-047.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.masasoft.com%2F%3Fcat%3D3&docid=Iq0TYj5jGgYUqM&tbnidQ7hHvi0vNiYM%3A&w00&h0&hl=en-GB&bihS8&biw78&ved
hUKEwiqiZbd2MPPAhVJ6GMKHYPIB9YQMwhIKCEwIQ&iact=mrc&uact=8
Don't knock it til you try it :).
Cheers,
Steve
(Old salt - now 30 - and grumpy bum, veteran leader of club dive trips to
nearly every state in Australia, and regretfully missing my 7th trip to the
Prom this year for *certain reasons out of my control*)
PS: Henry - great report, well done. Almost as good as the famous "Garlic
Day" dive report, which I encourage everyone to read or reminisce here:
https://sites.google.com/site/monucdiveclub/dive-report/garlicday-29122010
On Wed, Oct 5, 2016 at 9:53 PM, Whitney Louvat <wlou0001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Hi everyone! I missed the aquarium dive but thanks for the read,
hopefully, I can check it out soon!
Anyways, with summer coming up I wanted to recommend if anyone can score a
cheap flight and accommodation on Hawaii's Big Island (Kona, Hawaii) I
highly recommend the Manta Ray night dive. I did this dive with Big Island
Divers but there are loads of dive shops that offer this dive! I haven't
done it because I wasn't experienced enough when I was in Hawaii, but a
friend told me the best dive over there is the Pelagic Magic dive offered
by Jack's Diving Locker, and this dive shop also offer the Manta Ray night
dive.
Besides that if anyone does make a journey to Hawaii I can provide you some
info (food, beaches) on the island of Oahu since I lived there for 3 years
and a good small dive shop is Aloha Scuba Divers. If you want to get any
dive certs while you're in Oahu you should contact the guy who did my dive
cert because he's awesome! Also, Aloha's prices for certs were way cheaper
than other shops.. And also check for Groupons!
One last thing, I wasn't able to go to the island of Kauai because I ran
out of time and didn't get my dive cert until this year, but I heard the
diving at Ni'ihau is AMAZING!! I am definitely looking forward to planning
a journey over there to dive some time and I suggest that you do too! This
is the end of my random e-mail.
Whitney
On 5 October 2016 at 12:14, Michelle Doolan <michelledoolan@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
*Below is the dive report of our recent Aquarium club dive. Thanks veryand
much to Henry for preparing it :) *
[image: Inline image 1]
On arriving at the aquarium we were met by hoards of screaming children
queues of British proportions. Sneaking through any gap in the walls ofand
people we each managed to make our way to the front desk to be redirected
to the waiting 'nook' (to call it a room would be rather grandiose).
Initial awkward conversations sprang up between newly acquainted divers
once the customary "Where have you dived and how many dives have youdone?"
spiels had concluded, everyone was the best of chums. Michelle rocked upto
wish everyone well and ensured that her inside-man was present andtank
accounted for and then we were off, down into the depths of the aquarium.
We were taken for our dive brief with the surface of the main aquarium
close by. The staff were very friendly and it was clear they were oldsalts
when it came to leading dives at the aquarium, no matter whether clientsmany
were experienced or not. We were given a slide show introducing us to
of the inhabitants of the tank next to us, a particular favourite was Mr.active
G, a Queensland Grouper. I'll leave it to your imagination what his
underwater hand sign was. During our briefing a few of us got stingray
high-fives (some to the head) from an inmate of the aquarium's equivalent
to prison (quarantine), who had been moved to the nearby tank for the
benefit of the female rays in the main tank ('Tis the season apparently).
God knows how you herd a stingray?
[image: Inline image 6]
Once the brief was concluded we were sectioned off into our individual
groups and let lose in the aquarium until our respective dive time
approached. I was hesitant when our dive instructor brought out long
wetsuits, gloves and hoods but was pleasantly surprised to find the water
was a balmy 26º C. We found out that the reason for the amount of
insulation was simply because we would not be doing a great deal of
swimming in the tank (for the safety of the inhabitants). For those ofyou
that have seen the film Coming to America with Eddie Murphy, theexperience
is how I would imagine he would have been treated prior to his journey.We
stepped into the tank and had our fins put on for us. We were thenushered
one by one to a perch over one of the translucent pedestrian tunnelswhere
we got a vivid fish-eye view of what the inhabitants see on daily basis.or 3
Excited kids hammering on the glass and having their minds BLOWN when one
or other of us would wave at them. Before we knew it our hosts were all
around us, welcoming us to their home. An enormous ray, 2.5m in diameter
came swooping by, narrowly missing my mask by mere cm's, followed by 2
of their larger sharks (spear-throwers? I forget their names). Every nowwe
and again, there would be a lull in the procession of larger animals and
would be ushered to another stand, whereupon pictures were taken andsingle
schools of enormous brightly coloured fish would filter between us,
entirely without fear.
[image: Inline image 3] [image: Inline image 5]
An enduring memory which made me regard the rays as slightly akin to
puppies was when we were all lying down in a line for a photo when a ray
glided to a perfect stop and settled next to the person at the end of the
line, keen to surreptitiously get in on the photo. I can honestly say I
have never seen such an abundance of large underwater creatures on a
dive before, if you're looking for a dive that pits you against strongI
underwater currents and gives you a cardio workout this is not the
experience for you. However, if you are looking to get up close and
personal with some incredible examples of their kind (some that are
endangered and that you are unlikely to find in the wild), I would highly
recommend signing up for the next experience. The dive flew by and while
can't speak for my dive buddies, I could have happily sat there foranother
hour, mesmerised by the seemingly choreographed movements of the sharks,
rays, groupers and Maori wrasse. After the dive, we grabbed a hot shower
and were released into the aquarium to have a look around. It was a great
afternoon at a student-friendly price. Many thanks to Michelle and her
housemate for getting this organised, a very unique experience indeed!!
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