Skip.net > Trips > Scuba Diving at Coffs Harbour
Who went: Brendan Heywood, Julie Chown and Kelly Drake. Some others were there for the party: Domonic Talary, Steve Eskesen, Clair ?? and Aaron ??.
We did a 4 day scuba course and came out as certified Open Water PADI divers! The course had a lot of theory. All of day 1 was in the classroom. Day 2 was pool work and a bit more theory. Day 3 and 4 we actually went out on a boat in the mornings and did more theory in the arvos.
The first two dives at Pig Island had poor visibility due to stormy weather mixing up all the water. Most of the time we were still messing about with gauges and BCD's so it wasn't that big a deal. We went down to 12 meters on two dives.
The next day we went out to Split Solitary Island. The island itself is pretty cool with a huge crack running right though it. I was feeling pretty sea sick by the time we got there so I was very keen to get off the boat. This time we went down to 18 meters. On the second dive I was still feeling sick and I almost threw up when I was on the bottom, which apparently is not as fatal as I thought.
The bottoms here is more rocky and so the visibility was heaps better but still not perfect due to the weather.
There was a lot of coral and fish. When we were practicing out skills, some curious fish would swim right up to you. One fish would roll a rock over to me with his nose and I would push it back. Then he would push it towards me again.
I was still a little preoccupied with trying to not breath water so I missed some of the sights. Between the two dive parties we saw Sea Turtles, Wobbegongs, Port Jackson Sharks, Moray Eels, Lion fish, and heaps of fish including cute little Damsel fish which are iridescent purple.
The other people who did the course were a mix of Brits, Irish, Welsh and Dutch plus Kiwi if you count Kelly. They were a great bunch of people. I can't wait to do my Advanced Open Water course and do some stuff up north where the water is warmer.