Check-out was at 10am when we drove just round the corner to
the Dive Shed. There, as promised, we
were able to hire all of the equipment required for us to dive the jetty. This included a 7mm wetsuit for me to protect
me from the cold as we were hoping for a dive time in excess of an hour. The staff in the shop were brilliant and lent
us a trolley for free to get our gear to the dive platform on the jetty. It
felt a little bizarre, wheeling our trolley full of gear down the pier next to
the train tracks. There were some others
who had chosen to walk the length of the jetty but the majority opted to
take the tourist train to the end. Well,
if we were feeling at all homesick, this would take us right back there to
Southend pier, the longest pleasure pier in the world. Have to say the weather and marine life is a
lot more appealing off this one though!
 |
| Simon ready with our trolley-full of dive equipment |
Having never been on the jetty before we had been instructed
to stop at a diving/fishing platform about two thirds along it to set up our
gear and jump in. But it’s quite hard to
judge distance when you’re actually walking on it! But we selected the largest looking platform
with a nice wide ladder to help us out at the end. The leap into the water was looking a bit
high for my liking but, as expected, by the time we’d set our gear up and
squeezed into our wetsuits before donning the lot, all we wanted to do was jump
into the water to cool off! Off we went. As soon as we descended we were looking at
the corals and life on the pillars under the jetty, taking our time and getting
into the dive.
We saw some shoals of
small fish, nudibranchs (above) and puffer fish.
 |
| Spot the camouflaged Gurnard Perch... |
As all good divers do we were keeping a close eye on our depth and air
readings. Being such a shallow dive, it
gave us lots of time in the water. However, after 45 minutes heading out to sea
we still hadn’t reached the end of the jetty or seen the underwater observatory
that we’d been told we’d pass! I wanted to keep on going but the sensible thing
was to turn around and head back. I was
disappointed that we hadn’t made it to the end and may have missed out on some
of the best stuff. We made sure we were
heading back at a good pace to get back to our start point but that still
didn’t stop us seeing a large octopus and cuttlefish on the way. Just as we both reached 50 BAR of air left,
when you really should be ending your dive, I looked up and there were the
metal stairs that we had descended next to.
Timed to perfection! We had been
under water for 79 minutes. So what if we didn’t get to wave at the other
tourists inside their glass case?!
Getting up a slippery metal ladder carrying all that weight
was tough but we managed it carefully and then reloaded the trolley for the
return walk. We had no idea what the
time was but we were surprised that it was after 2pm when we got back to
Ozzie. We grabbed a quick lunch before
returning all of the equipment to Dive Shed where Simon finally invested in his
own mask and snorkel set before we hit the road to head back to Fremantle.
Our friends Lara and Johan who we haven’t seen since we were
in Toronto in August 2015 (I’m such a ‘place-dropper’ these days….) flew back
into Australia yesterday and have been invited to a BBQ at Linton and
Daniella’s tonight. It’s the one night
they can make it before Johan flies back up north to work until Christmas! We
drove like the wind because we hoped to have showered and changed before they
got there but we’d left it too late, so we had to slope off to get cleaned
up. We’d all brought some grub round to
the house and Daniella did the honours, cooking up a BBQ feast for us all
whilst we caught up on the last two years.
They seem to be doing well. Lara likes how much more relaxed nursing is
here than in the UK but Johan has been working way up north in Karratha since
they emigrated here, meaning that he leaves Perth for 3-6 weeks solid at a
time. Hardly ideal, but hopefully
something that will be changing in the new year. We kept the Allens up far too late but really
enjoyed the night. Johan has offered to
give us a tour around Karratha if we have time when we’re passing as he’s back
up there from tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment