Woke up at about 6am this morning. Had some tea and relaxed for a while to see what the weather would look like. Looked up at the sky and saw no clouds and that the sun was well on its way up. Awesome … time to pack my gear and head off to Clovelly/Gordons bay.

The air was still very chilly but that doesn’t matter as I like to get some cold therapy in the morning and go for a cold swim. Then when it gets to cold I can put on my wetsuit.

I arrived at Clovelly/Gordons and parked the car in the normal car park only to see massive waves breaking along the gordon bay area all the way through to clovelly.

Crap … maybe it will die down ?! Sat there for about an hour (enjoyed some more tea from the thermos I brought) whilst talking to some joggers (one with a GoPro strapped to his hat) and waiting to see if the conditions would get better.

The weather didn’t improve so I decided to head of to shelly beach and just go for a swim. The usual suspects were there and after the swim I sat in the sun, warmed up and had a chat with the guys about all sorts of random things. What can you do, if the weather doesn’t permit you dont force it 🙂

Check out the videos above and below to see the washing machine conditions both at Clovelly and Gordons. The video above is of the Clovelly pools and below is the entry to Gordon’s bay.

So we are truly getting into winter now. The water in good ol’e shelly beach was a balmy 18, 19, 20 degrees last week but its now starting to drop rapidly. I heard from the locals that it can get down to 12 ! Yes … 12 degrees Celsius 🙂

When that happens its going to be interesting to see who is still going to be at the pool’s, who wont and who will be using wetsuits 😛 I personally will give it a go, just my pants, fins (maybe) and goggles and see how long I can last before I need to get dry, jump in the car and put the heater on full blast.

I don’t think I have ever been in water that cold before for a prolonged period of time but since I have been swimming in these pools for the last 8 months I really want to test my tolerance to the water at 12 degrees. Some of the locals who have been going to the pools for the last 10 – 30 years still say they can maintain the same number of laps as usual so I guess their tolerance has really built up over the years … good for them !

Anyway, today I didn’t take the camera in the water, just did 30 laps, got dry and basked in the sun for about 30 mins. Needed to warm up my core body temperature before I left the beach.

Check out the image above of the temperature chart that is taken everyday by George ! As you can also notice the Air temperature is much much cooler than the water. This is why getting into the water is OK but its the getting out of the water thats the hardest.

So it was a foggy morning at the beach over the last few days. It’s interesting when you look out over the beach and see only a few meters ahead. Sometimes the morning starts bright and sunny, but because the air temperature drops much faster then the water temperature you can actually start to see the water rising from the surface as vapour.

As your swimming, you can actually see the water rising. It almost makes you feel like you are in a hot bath however the water is far from being a hot bat ! This simply happens because the air is so cold compared to the water (which in its self is really cold). If you look at the image on the left you can actually see the fog on the horizon making its way closer to the shore

I have actually wanted to go diving along the edge of the rocks with the fog but the swell has been very high so it hasn’t been the right conditions to go diving. With the fog it can be dangerous with boats but (assuming that the waters are calm and there is no swell) aslong as you stay close to the edge of the rocks and just explore this area it should be fine as boats never come that close to shore.

Anyway, this is just a quick blog post, check out the images above … one minute everything is fine then a few minutes later the fog starts to set in and the sun disappears from sight !

So today I took 2hrs of to go and drop Damir’s wetsuit to his new work place. Just so you know his new work place is on an old boat built in the 1940’s. It looks like an old school ship that captain cook came in when he found Australia.

Had a nice tour of the ship and said hi to the crew. Even had a chance to meet the captain “Marty”. It was good timing to as when we arrived Marty was trying to access the internet to check some important email when all his IT started to fail 😛 To cut a long story short, we did a bit of fiddle diddle and got the net working so he could check his email.

After the tour I had a chance to climb the mast which I think is about 19 meters tall. Before I climbed the mast I had to sign the usual disclaimer form (which is understandable). When I reached the top I took a few pictures and a video. It was a great climb and really exciting to see the harbour from so far up.

Hopefully I get a chance to do it when the ship is sailing. This way I can feel the boat rock as I am high up on the mast. That should be fun I think 😛

Anyway, some pictures and video of the tour ….

So in between super rainy weekdays the weekend exposed a lot of sunlight and great weather to be in the great outdoors. One of the issues is because of recent rain the waters were very murky and the swell was pretty high so not really ideal diving conditions, however this didn’t stop me and I still went diving and really glad that I did.

I did a few quick dives when I arrived just to get wet then exited and took a break while I just sat on some of the rocks to relax. After sitting for a while a guy came down with fins, the exact same wetsuit that I had, mask and the usual free diving equipment. I asked him if he was alone and he said yes so I asked if he wanted to join us. He agreed and connected one GoPro to his head mount, one GoPro to his chest and made his way to the water.

The minute he stepped into the water a massive wave smashed into him and when he recovered the GoPro mounted to his head was gone. The GoPro went missing right on the shore line where the waves were breaking against the rocks so it wasn’t exactly safe to be staying in that area looking for the missing camera. Irrespective of that, I helped him look for the GoPro (which was a black edition BTW) but still nothing. After about 10 minutes of looking and getting battered against the rocks we gave up and thought our lives were more important then a $500 dollar camera.

After sometime I went towards the rocks around the shallow part of the dive site. Its pretty boring for dive practice but much of the sea life resides within this area. It’s usually pretty nice when the waters are clear but there was so much dirt it was hard to see anything today. To my surprise as I was getting ready to go down and explore this area below the surface of the water, I saw a Wobbegong shark just hanging around at the bottom. It was about 1 meter long (maybe just a bit more then that) and was just sitting there probably waiting to jump on some prey.

I wasn’t aware of the behaviour of Wobbegong’s so I didn’t want to get to close. I knew it was a Wobbegong because I could recognise its shape and could see the beard along its mouth. I didn’t know at the time of the dive, if Wobbegong’s attack or what they ate, were they carnivores or herbivores, I remember reading it but had forgotten.  After some research on Wikipedia, it seems Wobbegong’s eat fish and have been known to attack snorkelers and scuba divers who annoy or try to block the Wobbegong’s path. They are also considered very flexible and can turn around and bite if you try to touch its tail. The grip of the Wobbegong shark is also thought to be very strong and once they bite, can hold on and can be very difficult to remove.

I stayed a safe distance from the Shark but was happy to see a Wobbegong in real life and to also be able to catch it on camera 🙂 At least next time, if I see a Wobbegong I will know what to expect. I didn’t spend to long at the dive site because it was my old man’s birthday and had to go home and cook the birthday dinner as I had promised 🙂

Ok so let me quickly clear up the term “Dr Shelly”. Many of the long time swimmers at shelly beach refer to the shelly pools as “Dr Shelly”. The reason being is that it keeps the older folk healthy, fit, active and provides a social environment that is nice to be around. What does a doctor do ? Keeps you well and healthy. Whether its mentally or physically the doctor helps with all those things. Since the pools at shelly does both for the longtime swimmers, its referred to as “Dr Shelly” 🙂

So today I arrived at the crack of dawn, said hi to the usual suspects and looked out over the water and realised that it was not the kind of conditions that would be good for freediving training (or swimming for that matter), specially if you are after some nice dynamics back and forth through the pool. I got in the water and began the session with some warmups followed by the swim. Started on the far right corner of the north end of the pool and after the laps due to the washing machine effect caused by the currents, most of us ended up at the bottom left corner of the south end of the pool. Visibility was also crap so it was hard to know whether you had reached the other side or not. Pretty much everyone ended on the bottom left of the south end of the pool so even the swimmers would get clumped together in one end of the pool.

Today was a pretty crappy day to train but watching the waves crash and the height of the water coming in over the rocks, along with feeling the pull and the strength of the current just makes you realise the awesome power of the ocean. It can be calm and peaceful one day and on the next its completely rough and unforgiving.

Anyway, to close of the morning pool session, I simply took my fins off, took my mask off and just floated on my back with my face to the sky. It started raining and feeling the rain on my face, the bobbing up and down of the waves on my back and the sound of the waves crashing was very relaxing. Had my wetsuit on too so it was nice and warm.

Photos and video attached… 🙂

So winter is upon us here in Sydney. The water at shelly beach between the times of 6am – 8am are stable at about 18 – 19 degrees Celsius. The air temperature is about 15 degrees Celsius, so all in all, its cold !

I can see the normal faces that are usually there in the morning still *mostly* there but a few of the  regular swimmers are becoming more scarce. Might be that they are just swimming just a tad later when the water is warmer or when the air temperature is warmer. At 6 – 7 am in the morning, its nice once you are in the water but once you get out thats when the cold really hits so it could be they are starting later 🙂

Anyway, I continue to swim at about 6am – 7am in the morning. Can’t start the day without it and the cold doesn’t really stop me to much. After the swim I just relax for about 30 mins, go for a run then get back to start work. They say the water gets to about 11 degrees Celsius at the peak of winter. I am not sure if I will be in Australia when this hits but if I am im surely going to try to withstand, that cold 🙂 If not, ill just put my wetsuit on and continue with my swim.

Regardless of the water temperature the weather has been  excellent (no rain for the last 3 weekends) and the sun has continued to shine beautifully every morning. If this kind of weather continue its going to be pretty awesome.

The pictures kind of remind me of an artists depiction of a neutron star with its magnetic rays emanating from its center 🙂

WARNING: LOTS OF IMAGES BELOW 🙂

The beach, the ocean, the sun & the underwater world is beautiful and as you start to spend more and more time amongst it you learn lots of things about the wildlife (in my case underwater wildlife), the environment and about the dangers that exist within this environment.

When the conditions are not good for diving or even swimming you learn to respect what nature is saying and not force the dive simply because you want to. You learn that touching animals and even the coral can effect the environment and try your best not to step on anything incase you break it, hurt it or kill it. You kind of feel sad when you see people handling marine life with their bare hands worrying that the bacteria or viruses on the hands might effect the animal in some negative way.

You understand that by being in the water even though its all fun and exciting, you are not in your normal habitat and there could be wild animals that may bite you, sting you or think that you are food. As a result you always keep a lookout and try to identify all these dangers because of that respect you have.

Sometimes though as you get used to the environment and spend more and more time you can forget the dangers and thats when you can get into trouble. Today was such a day and boy does it get scary !

So we decided to go to clovelly today. Gordon’s bay & clovelly are kind of boring when you have explored all the places but when you are not sure of the swell at some of the more difficult locations and really want to get into the water then Clovelly and Gordon’s bay are pretty much a sure thing, yeah the visibility can be terrible but at least its safe.

Before we get into the water we usually sit down for a while, (about 10-15 minutes) do some breathing exercises, maybe eat a banana and have some water just prior to the dive.  This time however we decided to walk around the corner of clovelly to shark bay just to see what the site looks like. Shark bay is (as far as I know) an advanced dive site and should only be taken for the more experienced divers.  However I just wanted to see what the place looked like so if I do ever come with some more senior divers I at least can imagine the site.

So we sat around the rocks around shark bay for a while and just took in the fresh air and the ocean spray that was making its way through the air after the waves crashed into the rocks and splashed the white wash all threw the air. I decided to try to take some photos of the waves crashing upon the rocks and actually got some really awesome shots (as you can see below).

Damir decided to get closer to the ledge to see the action in closer view and to also have some of the water spray on him. We had been there for about 15 – 20 minutes and I started taking snaps. As Damir walked closer to the cliff face a MASSIVE wave bigger then all the others that had come over the last 20 minutes crashed on the rocks and made a MASSIVE white wall of water that came right over the top of the cliff ! It threw water everywhere and Damir was about 2 meters from the edge. At this time, I was probably about 6 meters from the edge.

When the water came over the top and came back down over the rocks, it began to pull us back towards the edge of the cliff where there was a 3-4 meter drop into more rocks and heavy seas with strong swells. When the wave came over and made the white wall, Damir had his hands out like the chick from titanic but when he realised how much water was actually coming over he got on all fours and held onto the rocks as it pulled him closer to the ledge.

He was lucky, it didn’t pull him over the edge, but he was close, legs, hanging of the edge, but it did bang him up a bit and left some cuts on his leg. Goes to show that sometimes you can have a small lapse in concentration, take things for granted (because the last 20 minutes the waves where small so we assumed it was safe to go closer) and without warning things strike. He was bloody lucky and in usual Damir fashion he was talking it down saying things where OK, but he sh*t his pants 🙂 I could tell … 😛 I actually managed to get snaps of this event unfolding, it’s not a video (though a video would have been good) just a few pictures. Now I can appreciate how dangerous and insane rock fishing is, specially in unpredictable swells such as this.

Pictures of the event below .. (note, in the image second row, last column, Damir is lost somewhere in that whitewash just 2 meters from the edge of the cliff, When i saw that gush of water coming towards me i pissed my pants because this was just the start of the white wash :P)

Short clip of “Bluey” the famous blue grouper from the Clovelly beach pools …

After this little mishap, we went back into the water, took a nice dive around Gordon’s bay, avoided a swarm of blue bottles that seemed to be hanging around the rocky area of the bay and enjoyed the rest of the day.

We then went back to the clovelly pools and took some pictures of the famous blue grouper Bluey and a few other fish there. Never really took nice pictures at the clovelly pools and the wildlife is actually pretty nice, lots of coloured fish, saw a few sting rays and schools of tiny fish swimming together.

Next week if the weather is good, the plan is to dive north Maroubra beaches and check out the Hereward shipwreck which is about 50m’s of the shore. My new Cressi Gara Modular’s are also arriving this week so that should make the experience much better too …

Anyway, enjoy the pictures below of Clovelly 

Little bay is a little bit of paradise in the great city of sydney. It’s a nice little bay with white sand, clean blue waters, beautiful rocks and is very secluded and hidden in amongst the other beaches, golf courses and apartments. The format of the bay is such that there is an inner part of the bay where kids can snorkel, swim and be as safe, however there is a slight opening that leads out to the outer part of the bay. This opening into the outer part of the bay has a very strong rip that can pull you out if you are not careful. (so parents make sure your kids dont get to close to this opening)

I had planned to go to little bay to check out the underwater life and go for a dive but on this particular day it was highly unsafe because of the swell.

According to the locals this particular opening from the inside to the outside of the bay has a permanent rip which pulls you out to the opening of the bay close to the open ocean. This is actually not an issue if your goal is to dive but because of this powerful rip divers don’t normally come back through the gap as its very hard to swim through it again once you are out. The normal entry and exit for this dive site is usually to make your way into and out of the water through the rocks on the left side of the bay. This is simple enough if there is no swell but when there is swell it can be very dangerous.

There are stories of lots of fishermen who love to rock fish there (as it is a great place) but because of the large swells are sadly killed when they are washed under the rocks.

I wish I could have done the dive but in the interest of safety I just enjoyed the atmosphere and the beautiful surroundings. Found a few golf balls within the inner part of the bay just snorkelling around 🙂 To be honest there isn’t much to see other then sand on the inner part of the bay snorkelling wise, but for the younger kids its safe and fun. When I get enough golf balls I might sell it back to the golf course near by for lunch money 😛

Lots of pictures below …