Any other divers here?

I lost my PADI card when I moved to Japan. Oh joy! PADI has me on their database (qualified Jan 1990), and my replacement has arrived. Woo Hoo.


Most of my diving has been off Rottnest Island. I managed a couple of days on the Barrier Reef when I should have been at a Cairns convention. (That was an epic trip. I did some fieldwork at Cannington, so I needed tropical kit, diving so I needed mask and snorkel, and travelled back via Canberra, so I needed my ski gear too).

Now it's all set. Two weeks in Bali, come November. Bring it on

Where will you dive there Soubs?
I did mine in the Carribean years ago, I only used it once since. Most of my diving now is freediving (spearfishing)

I'm, going to Turamben and Menjangen (north Bali).

I'll post stuff here. In the meantime, you water people should get your heads under, and see what you are missing.

Never got certified, but I did everything in the PADI course as an interpreter....always the way! Lots of useless knowledge gain along the way and no paperwork to show for it! LOL But I do LOVE my job!!

'Ning Mama.

You should get your ticket. Watching a pair of squid making love is a highlight in my life. It's amazing what you can do with eight arms.

dunno about making love, they were prob just doing their reproductive thing. Octopusses and squids are alien life forms.

Got my PADI openwater in 95. Not been since.

The company's dive club are in Bali right now.

I haven't been in years but really want to get out again. Got my PADI openwater on Gili Trawangan in 97.

gili is beautiful.

I got my advanced OW in egypt in 1998, cant imagine much better diving than in the red sea.

try the Coral Sea.

4 days, 4 dives - simply outstanding.

Holmes Reef

these are not my photos, but this was the same boat and the very same reef I had the pleasure of diving at an earlier time. If you ever get to Cairns - take a four day dive trip out inot the coral sea - you will not regret it.

Nice one SG. How big were those sharks? I always like to give 2 metre-long things plenty of personal space, especially when they have teeth and/or barbs.

Stating the bleeding obvious, it's a different world. I love flying through 3-dimensions.

Yep, the Red Sea is pretty impressive, did you do it at Shamel Shek? I've dived the Great Barrier reef a few times but I've never had the water clarity of the Red Sea. It was a bit devoid of fish life though.

they were mostly white tip and silver tip reef sharks and few nurse sharks, one of the Tawny grey nurse sharks was well over 3 meters long.
We did one shark feed dive at a spot called "predators playground" where they used a pulley system to a set bouy with meat tied to skewers for the sharks to eat and we the divers sat/kneeled together on the bottom 20m away, the water was only 9m deep so we had a long dive: 51mins!(just checked my dive log) - I remember starting to get pretty cold though.
The week before we went, a 4m+ hammerhead came investigating and naturally everyone got out of the water fairly quickly.
The dive leader said he was packing himself, it was the first time to have such a visitor.
Only that dive boat use that spot and once a week at most, but all the sharks know about it.

There was also a night dive, which was awesome - so spooky seeing the beams of lights, like the movie Abyss style.
Speaking of which there was a wall dive called the "abyss"
The wall went down vertically into the inky darkness below.

Great trip, way out in the ocean, 100's of Km's from land so the water vis was just awesome and the reef was pristine.

diving is such an amazing activity.

PADI, I got my ticket with SSI, they reckoned PADI stood for
Pay Another Dollar Immediately


TBH though it doesn't really matter where you get it, just as long as you get it!

I did an introductory dive on a boat from Airlie Beach, we went 10-12 metres down and I was blown away!! It was beautiful down there