So yesterday we went to check out Gordon’s bay to do some free diving. We arrived right at the crack of day when the sun was just about to rise. It was a beautiful scene. The feeling you get when you see this kind of morning is one where you want to spread out your arms breathe in all the air you can get, smell the ocean, savour it and just slowly let out the air. The weather was warm, there wasn’t much wind and it seemed we where the first ones there.
We unloaded the make shift buoy and took out all our gear. We found a nice rock and
placed all our equipment there claiming it to be ours for the day. Damir took out his phone and started taking snaps of the beautiful scenery, then proceeded to SMS people and get them jealous by showing them the pictures 🙂
The waves were pretty strong as we started to go down the dive ramp but we managed to get down without slipping or hurting ourselves, we then started to make our way to the middle of the ocean when we were struck with blue bottles …. dozens of them all around us with long tentacles. We didn’t notice them until Damir started screaming “Sh*t blue bottles and the thing just stung me … F*rk”. So here we where in the middle of the bay surrounded by blue bottles at the crack of dawn. Then a few seconds later I got stung on the leg, chin and shoulders. It went from a great morning to an absolute disaster.
We swam back into shore and went to the coast guard to ask what we should do. The coast guard was still closed because we were there so early so we spoke to a few people and googled what the remedies were and the best suggestion was to use warm water. We couldn’t get warm water from the shops because they were all still closed but what I did have was a nice bottle of water that had been standing in the sun for a very long time so it seemed to be warm enough. I washed my leg, shoulders and chin with the water an Damir also did the same with his arm.
After a few minutes the pain went away and my leg automatically started healing (now the marks from the blue bottle jellyfish is no longer visible about a day later). Damir still has a line on his arm from where the tentacles were but its getting very faint and should heal in a few days.
We decided to go to Clovelly instead as there didn’t seem to be any blue bottles there. We had a few good dives, relaxed on the buoy and took some videos. On the way back to the car we saw that NOW Gordon’s bay was full of people, there were scuba divers, snorkelers swimmers and sunbathers. It seemed like the blue bottle issue was now no longer a problem so we went back to Gordon’s bay.
We walked down the ramp and paddled out into the middle of the bay and Free Dove the main wall and followed a pack of scuba divers who were doing some training and marine sight seeing. It felt good to see scuba divers around because if any problems arose there would be much help around. We followed them around the trail and checked out much of the ocean life, even saw a sting ray ! 🙂
What started out as an awesome day, then turned into a bad day ended up as a great day with lots of learning experiences. I learnt that if there are lots of seagulls in the water its a sign that there are lots of jelly fish (don’t know if its true but will look it up), learnt that its a good idea to bring a thermo with hot water so that if jelly fish attacks again, we can mix it with some cold water and wash away the poison and last but not least, its probably a good idea to bring a first aid kit in the bag for cuts and bruises.
All in all it was a great day and next week hoping to get Gordon’s bay in the first person and also take lots of wild life shots. The 3rd person free diving video is above, hope you enjoy.
Below are the directions to gordon’s bay from the main city of sydney:
