Diving at the Spit

By Ben Noble (10/12/2004)

 

A few weekends ago Nath and myself took the opportunity of getting a few pointers on depth diving from Wal when we dived in The Spit in Sydney. The Spit is an area inside the harbour that has calm water most of the time and can have depth from around 25-31m in some areas. It was a beautiful sunny day and upon arrival the water was very flat and to our surprise a pleasantly warm 20 degrees on the surface. Being new at diving at the Spit, Wal informed us that the vis would be terrible at best, with the water being cloudy green most of the time and very dark at depth (we later saw that this was no exaggeration at all). But having watched the 2004 World Championship DVD held in Canada the night before, we were well versed in the ways of green water diving.

We swum out to a boat mooring and used it's line as our dive line. We started out with a couple of static hangs at about 5-10m, this was to help kick in the dive reflex as well as get accustomed to the dark green water. Then after a bit we started doing some deeper dives, 15m, then 20m, 22m and finally 26m which was the bottom. For my 26m dive I breathed up for about 3-5 minutes, packed and took off, using the dive technique Wal had taught us. The first 10m were light but a bit cloudy, after this there was a lot less light but it seemed clearer. At about 17m it got very cold and by this stage it was hard to see. I hit 22m and it went virtually pitch black, which was an eery experience. Using the line as a guide I slowed and kept one hand on the rope and the other hand near my face checking my depth until I thought I was near the bottom.

At this stage the rope finished and a chain started, so I knew I was less than a metre from the bottom. I kept going down a little then turned and headed for the surface. At some point the contractions started but I didn't really notice as I was gawking around at how surreal it was in the cold green mass around me. About half way up I met Wal with the camera which was a good thing knowing I was nearly there. When I surfaced I took a couple of breaths and realised that I could have gone a bit further as I had enough 02 left for a bit more. My previous PB was about 13m, so to double it was a pretty good feeling! Nath also hit bottom and scored a new PB. He later tried some no-fins with Wal's home-made pipe goggles. All in all it was a brilliant day, new PB's and learnt some good technique as well. Looking forward to some blue water adventures now!