Rainy day at the beach

If you are like me and you love the beach because of the water, the smell of the salt and being just at peace when you are by the sand whether its rain, hail or shine (well maybe not hail), any weather is good to be by the beach. As long as you are not caught out in the currents in a dangerous situation if you have time to be by the water the weather isn’t a pre-requisite for being at the beach.

All week the weather has been great but starting today the weather has turned for the worse. Lots of rain, thunder and the air temperature started at about 12 degrees and has moved to about 15 (still pretty cold). However this crappy weather didn’t stop the usual cheerful folk who usually swim every morning. When I got to the beach there was only one person there. I thought that it might be a quiet day today seeing as it was really cold but sure enough the usual suspects started to make their way to the beach and do their daily swim.

Some of the guys swam for shorter times because the water was pretty cold, between 18 – 19 degrees depending on where you are in the rock pools but I managed to get my 2 laps x 60m underwater and then proceeded to do the 18 laps x 30m underwater. I was in the water for about 1hr in total taking into consideration safety breathe up breaks between each underwater swim.

The swell was pretty bad and it looks like diving tomorrow will be canceled unless there is a massive turn around in the weather. Rough seas, zero visibility and no company is all enough reason to not go this weekend. I might replace the dive with a long distance run in the rain though, nice way to get some distance running in there and get cooled off automatically while im running 🙂 I love running in the rain, its really fun and soothing.

Anyway photo of the sea above, not everyday is a sunny day at the beach as this picture shows but everyday is certainly a good day to be a the beach whether its rain or shine !

The weather was perfect for diving yesterday ! The sun has been out all week, almost no clouds in the sky, I could imagine that the visibility was going to be great with the sun shining through the waters allowing me to see the bottom of the ocean and dive towards it.

I had my mask ready, damir had his new mask, we had a new and improved design for the dive buoy that allowed us to roll the rope up and down for easy deployment and retrieval, we had a newer longer extended camera pole for better videos and it was an all round win.

We got to Oak Park and started to assemble the buoy we had designed. I cleaned both Damir’s and my mask with tooth paste and got my snorkel and camera cleaned. Mounted the camera onto the pole and headed towards the water. Waves were pretty big and choppy so we had to be careful not to get pushed up against the rock pool wall upon entry. I looked around the waters to see if there were other dive buoy’s but there were none, I saw a couple of scuba divers make their way into the water via the east side entry so I thought they were probably doing a track underneath and would exit back at the beach so a buoy was not needed.

I jumped in the water and it wasn’t good, silt was everywhere, visibility was no better then about 1 metre or so and in the very shallow 2-3 metre parts of Oak Park, I couldn’t even see the bottom of the sea. Ridiculous, we swam out a bit to see if it was clearer and still absolutely nothing. I dove down into murky waters to see if it was better below and the water became really cold at about 5 meters down. The transition from the cold to the warm and vise-versa was really noticeable, the current was also pretty strong. After a while we realised it was not a win and not a good day for diving (at Oak Park anyway) and headed back to shore.

Within 15minutes we paddled back and discussed what to do next. We were contemplating going to gordon’s bay again, then decided to try out some of the Kurnell dive sites. After some back and forth we decided to go to the Kurnel sites, first being “Boat harbour” then “The steps”.

We didn’t manage to get to “The steps” because according to google maps it was in a national park and that park was about to close at 6:30 – 7:00, we were already at about 5 oclock at this time and thought it wasn’t enough time to check it out, seeing as there was a fee on entry.

We then went to “Boat Harbour” and drove on some pretty dodgy dirt roads which made me think we were going the wrong way, however after following the road for a while we did end up at the right place. It seemed like it was low tide and there were some spearo’s there and some surfers, I was tempted to go in but the sea was exceptionally rough with large waves crashing onto the rocks and the spearo’s were about to get out so I didn’t want myself and damir to be the only one in the water with massive waves. We ate the lunch we packed and decided to turn back. The good thing was we learnt about all the different dive sites around the southern side of sydney so we will definitely be following up on those sites sometime in the near future.

In the end we went back to the Kurnell beaches, there was nothing else left to do, it was a sunday, weather was perfect and I didn’t feel like going home yet. I also remembered that I didn’t have any nice videos of the sunset so decided it would be a perfect time to capture the sunset and take a few snaps at Kurnel 🙂

So no diving videos this week, just that of the peaceful sunset over the horizon enjoying a nice cup of warm team from the thermos, taking shit, shooting the breeze (arguing about stuff as usual) and watching the sunset ! Enjoy …

Shelly Beach Sunrise Cronulla

Since daylight savings was reverted a week or so ago here in Australia, catching the sunrise requires me to wake up at about 5:00am in the morning so I can drive to shelly beach in time to catch it and do my usual morning swim. This post is dedicated to just that, watching the big ball of hydrogen atoms going through nuclear fusion, creating helium to produce the live giving warmth and light we call the sun come over the horizon. Its also a great time to say hi to the older, friendly folk swimming at shelly beach every morning 🙂

Steps down to the shelly beach rock pools for the older crowd to ensure they do not slip. There is also wheel chair access right next to the stairs

Sand on shelly beach where I usually put my gear before the swim when its not raining. Sometimes going for a dive along the side of the pool outside the barriers is fun to do in calmer waters

Walking down the shelly beach walk way towards the pools.

In the image below, on the right hand side of the walk way there used to be a really old block of apartments which are currently being fixed up with a new coat of paint. They also seem to be replacing the old rusting metal balconies with more modern glass and stainless steel models barriers to suite the rest of the newer apartments in the area.

It is certainly going to look good after its done ! Hmmm makes me think … wonder how much rent will be there once its completed 😛

It was a nice morning, got through my laps, sat on the beach and took in the fresh air for about 30 mins and now back home working on the final parts of the Android App soon to be released.

Enjoy the picture post !