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Diving Port Arthur

Final video installment from our January 2007 Australia trip: a short clip from a couple of dives in Port Arthur on the Tasman Peninsula.

A passing storm system on the weekend we arrived created a high swell that meant the boat was unable to venture out into open water. Instead we dived a (more or less) random location on the south east shore of Port Arthur.

Watch this video · Friday, April 20, 2007, 22:14

Weedy sea dragons

Despite the weather being against us, I did manage to capture a few sequences of weedy seadragons on our recent trip to Tasmania. Luckily for me, I had Keith Martin-Smith, the University of Tasmania’s resident seadragon expert, on hand to show me where to look.

Watch this video · Saturday, February 03, 2007, 03:12

HMAS Brisbane revisited

15 months on from our first visit, we took the opportunity to dive the HMAS Brisbane again in January 2007 to see how the marine life on the ship had developed.

If you compare the clip with our last visit, it’s immediately obvious that the density of fish life has increased significantly, particularly around the bows, where we spent a good chunk of our dive.

Watch this video · Wednesday, January 31, 2007, 16:18

Octopus periscope

At a site named Spiral Corner in Wakatobi, one of our fellow divers, Eva, discovered an octopus that apparently made his home in a small coral head covered by leather corals.

We watched him a good while, an he in turn watched us. Eventually, he decided it was time to up periscope, as you can see in the video…

Watch this video · Sunday, November 12, 2006, 12:53

Wakatobi reefscapes

Another video from our April trip to Wakatobi. The videos I posted already concentrated on the various critters we saw, as opposed to the reefs themselves. And that’s a shame, as the reefs in this part of the world are amongst the finest I’ve ever seen. This clip aims to make up for that omission by concentrating on the reefs themselves.

Watch this video · Sunday, October 29, 2006, 08:03

MV Hurricane: Day 6 - Ras Shona

Our final day brought us back in closer to short in preparation for the journey home from Marsa Alam. Typically, on the last day of a liveaboard, you’re winding down, thinking you’ve seen the best of the diving already. However, our final two dives on Ras Shona proved to be some of the most picturesque of the whole trip.

Watch this video · Saturday, October 07, 2006, 07:57

MV Hurricane: Day 5 - Daedalus

Day 5 took us to Daedalus, to the south of the Brothers. Having motored overnight, we arrived just in time at around 6am in the morning. We had three dives planned for the day. There were 3 or 4 other dive boats in attendance, fewer than the other places we’d been, but still more than I’d expected…

Watch this video · Thursday, October 05, 2006, 13:53

MV Hurricane: Day 4 - Big Brother

The dive site, that is, not the hideous TV creation.

The wind continued to howl and the current along with it. We attempted a morning dive on the wreck of the Aida, located on the north west corner of the island. Getting down without being swept away was a challenge. The top of the wreck lies at around 28m. Given the conditions, most of us took a look at the wreck and then settled for a drift down the west wall.

Watch this video · Tuesday, September 26, 2006, 14:20

MV Hurricane: Day 3 - Little Brother

After a day of diving Elphinstone, we motored for 10 hours over to the Brothers, two rocky outcrops in the middle of nowhere. As you’ll see in the video, the north wind was blowing hard with whitecaps a-plenty.

Watch this video · Monday, September 25, 2006, 14:47

MV Hurricane: Day 2 - Elphinstone

Day 2 took us 5 or so miles off-shore to Elphinstone reef, one of the best known sites in the Red Sea.

We arose early (6 am) with the intention of being first into the water. (Long gone are the days when you might expect to be the only dive boat at an Egyptian Red Sea dive site…) The light on the first dive was fairly low, as you can see from the footage.

Watch this video · Sunday, September 24, 2006, 07:51

MV Hurricane: Day 1

Day 1 takes us to the sites Um Ras and Marsa Abu Dabab. Um Ras was the site of our check-out dive – i.e. somewhere easy with no currents. Marsa Abu Dabab is a bay to the south of Marsa Alam. There’s a newly built hotel there which no doubt will result in increased levels of pollution in the bay. However, it remains a nice site for now.

Watch this video · Saturday, September 23, 2006, 12:11

Seals at Blakeney Point

Slightly off-topic this one – for the August Bank Holiday (that means a public holiday to the rest of the world), we visited the North Norfolk Coast and stayed in Cley-next-the-Sea.

One of the local attractions is the colony of seals, numbering around 400, which inhabits the sandy spit known as Blakeney Point. There are two types of seals, Common and Grey, that seem to co-exist quite happily. I’m pretty sure you can see the seals on Google Maps.

Watch this video · Saturday, September 09, 2006, 13:37

Indonesia nudibranchs

This video shows a collection of nudibranchs filmed on trips to Raja Ampat and Wakatobi in 2005 and 2006. None of the species are particularly rare, so far as I know. Identifications are my own (with the help of Bill Rudman over at the Sea Slug Forum to confirm the first subject).

Watch this video · Saturday, August 19, 2006, 16:39

Randall's Shrimp Goby

A clip of a Randall’s Shrimp Goby together with a pair of Djedda snapping shrimp (I think), shot in May 2006 at Wakatobi, Sulawesi Indonesia. The goby stays wary of the camera for the first two thirds of the clip before turning side on to display nicely at the end. Dive site was Pinkie’s Wall.

Watch this video · Saturday, July 08, 2006, 16:24

Wakatobi venomous fish

Filmed during a trip to Wakatobi, South Sulawesi in April/May 2006, this clip shows a selection of venomous fish: scorpionfish (amazing colour change), stonefish, lionfish swimming to the camera light and a leaf scorpion fish.

Watch this video · Tuesday, July 04, 2006, 16:22

A dive on the HMAS Brisbane

A dive on the HMAS Brisbane, a former Australian Navy destroyer scuttled off the Sunshine Coast, Queensland as a dive site. Filmed in October 2005, a couple of months after the ship was scuttled. The diver waving in the movie spent two years on board as Shipwright. This was his former workshop.

Watch this video · Sunday, July 02, 2006, 02:39

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