This is now the following Saturday, and my final dive. It is in Jervis Bay, which is about 2.5 hours south of Sydney. I starting driving down there last night with Marissa’s van. I’ve never heard of Jervis Bay, but I was told it has the whitest beaches, with beautiful scenery.
When I got there, it was 8:30pm. The holiday unit that we were staying in was empty. I gave Cassie a call, and found out everyone was relaxing at a pub in Huskinson. I was fortunate enough to run into my diving buddy, Karen, and eventually Andrew & William who were in the same group as me. Eventually, we met the whole group, which turns out to be over 18 of us! That should make an interesting dive trip!
When I woke up this morning, I was lucky enough to see a wild kangaroo eating plants behind our holiday units! It’s not scared of people at all. The place is littered with wildlife. I took some photos of pelicans and some unknown birds.
After a short pancake breakfast, it was time to get going, and we all headed towards Huskisson. Once we got there, we all started dressing up in our Scuba gear near the dock. Once our boat arrived, we started heading out towards the seal site. The boat is smaller than I thought. It was gonna become a 1 hour boat trip. It wasn’t too bad. The view of the cliffs were simply stunning! We even spotted a whale jumping right out the water!
The sound of the boat eventually subsided, and we all knew we were approaching the seal colony. As we approached, one of the group spotted the seal first, and shouted. Yeap, they were seals alright. A bucket load of them all sitting high on the rock cliffs. As if they were expecting us, they all started jumping into the ocean. It was an amazing sight. As we get even closer, the pungent smell that Cassie warned us about became apparent. Hmm.. I definitely don’t remember smelling this when I saw the seal colony in New Zealand.. perhaps an Australian seal thing? 🙂
Not to keep the seals waiting, we all got our gear ready, and started getting out of the boat. I was grouped with Andrew as my buddy. The instructor I had was not too patient, and did not do a buoyancy checks on everyone, including me. He decided we should go down. Just as I expected, I was underweighted, and could not sink at all. What’s even worse, I forgot to put my regulator in my mouth and was attempting to go down with my snorkel! Lucky I couldn’t sink!
The rest of the group went down with me floating on the top. Cassie (The other instructor) was nice enough to help me with some extra weights. Eventually, I did sink with the rest of the group, and get to watch the seals swimming around us. They definitely do not look the same underwater, as when they’re on land. They seem so quick and agile. My hired digital camera was WAY too slow to get any decent shots of them. Apparently the only way the seals will play with us, is if we acted silly with them. I guess I was too worried about my equipment to really get silly with the seals. We did keep them interested for a bit, until it was apparent they would rather play with each other than us.
This is also the deepest dive I’ve done so far. A depth of 15.4 metres. Karen inadvertently went to 18.4 metres (which is beyond the recreational limit of 18m!), without even realising it. Anyway, after about 30 minutes, we were all back in the boat, and started heading off. While the seals, as if they know we were leaving, all started climbing back to their cliff spots again.
We were suppose to get 2 dives, but the weather got worse. At least 4 of us got seasick, and spewed on the boat, including Karen. Luckily I was not one of them. I did feel a little sick, but was ok. Our trip back was a long one, but I was semi-glad that we don’t have to do the 2nd dive. I definitely did not feel up for it.
Once we got back on land, we all headed our separate ways. I spent a bit of time around Jervis Bay and drove back late. I have to admit that the sand was not as white as I have told to believe. Nevertheless, this dive is definitely worth the experience, although I’ll probably stick to coast diving for a while, before I consider boat diving again.
