As with many trips this time of year the final go/no go check on Friday night went along the lines of ‘it’ll be bumpy but we’ll probably be ok’. Early on Saturday morning a group of five possibly mad divers met at a windy and overcast Scarborough Boat harbour. Whilst setting up his kit Gavin ‘Mr Organised’ Wills suddenly found that he’d left his wing at home, somewhat limiting his diving options and inadvertently volunteering himself for surface cover and boat driving duty for the day.

It was a bumpy ride out across the bay but thankfully the island sheltered us from the worst of the swells at Combi Point, our first dive site. As the first pair kitted up Justin found that his drysuit cuffs had started dissolving into a gooey mess. Determined not to drop our numbers down to three divers, and with a bit of MacGyvering involving Vaseline, the drysuit was donned although expected to not be particularly dry. As there was a current running a big orange buoy was used as an SMB and Gavin dutifully followed the divers throughout their dive, creating spectacular squiggly modern art on the gps tracker. After a quick changeover Chris Joyce and I did the same dive trying to get to 35m depth. We hit bottom at 33.5m and didn’t fancy digging a hole so started reeling in whilst looking at the local fish life and hunting for small critters in the rocky walls. The highlights were a very pretty pair of crayfish with extremely long white feelers. Unfortunately the swell and current combined to jam the SMB line around the hub of the reel and we ended up with a big spaghetti ball by the end of the dive. Listening to the rain on the surface of the ocean during the safety stop didn’t lead to happy thoughts of surfacing.

Once we were all back aboard Chris’ boat we motored over to Curtin Artificial Reef through the downpour and waited for slack water by deploying the anchor in the shallows where it was again nice and calm and the rain eventually stopped. A plan was made for the second dive and we started to move off towards the GPS coordinates where Gavin was to drop us off. Unfortunately we’d forgotten to raise the anchor so had to go back and find it. Oops. Luckily the water was clear and not too deep so Rich was able to freedive down and attach a rope, after which we could haul it back on board.

The dive at Curtin was surprisingly good. We descended as a group of four straight onto the wrecks through extremely clear and still water. The visibility was so good that we all saw a 6ft bull shark as it cruised past. Luckily it didn’t hang around for a closer look. We spent an hour swimming around in what felt like a tropical aquarium, occasionally watching Chris disappear into holes and Rich retrieving snagged fishing weights.

After another successful pickup, and a personal warning of increasing winds from VMR Redcliffe, we made an even bumpier trip back to Scarborough wearing fashionable orange life jackets. After retrieving the boat and reuniting all the kit with its rightful owners we finished with a late lunch of fish and chips before heading back home.

The take home messages from the day are:

• Check you have all your gear before you leave home or you may not be diving.
• Check your gear is in good working order or you may not have a comfortable dive.
• You can still have a great day out even if things don’t go exactly to the original plan.

Thanks to Chris, Rich, Gavin and Justin for making what was looking like a marginal diving day into something that was surprisingly good, at least for me!

Cheers,

Laura