We did this at about 3.00pm Thursday. The best way to get out is to tow your gear through the surf zone, have a snorkel in and I put training shoes on to get over the rough coral. Its a good 20 minutes swim out, we took back bearings off the car as we lost the bouys in the swell occasionally, it was fun though. There was a little surface current, however I think this is normal for this area.
Having reached the bouy, we had a breather, discussed escape plans and descended into the deep blue. I tied my Nikes onto the bottom of the mooring bouy, hoping that I would be able to find them on the return!
The reef here, every diver knows, is awesome, Eileen and I took our time and dived along the wall some 120ft on Nitrox 32, then emerged at the top with well over 1500psi in our tanks. We were encouraged when we saw the first mooring bouy, and then the seconcd one with a pair of Nikes still tied to it! Such is Reef life that a litle Damselfish had already claimed the shoes as his house and was very upset when I started untying them, attacking my fingers all the while.
We had taken a bearing from the bouy back to the shore, and knowing that Eileen had just fisinished her advanced course, one dive which, was on Navigation, I handed her the compass to lead us back into the shore. Little did I realise that she would attack this challenge with gusto, as she raced off, eyes glued to the compass.....it was all I could do to slow her down :)
The nav was spot on and we just had to negotiate the surf zone. I got mashed up a little on some coral outcrops ( wear a full body wetsuit!) but it was a fantastic dive.
We eneded a great day with red wine, corona, a roast chicken from Hurleys with bread and a greek salad. We stopped off at Durty Reids, then got wrecked playing pool at the Country and Western...awesome!
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