Krista had been raving about the diving in Australia for a long time and we decided after discussing it a bit that we would dive together while we were here on our visit. I was excited because I hadn’t put on my diving “hat” since Bali and also because it would be nice to dive with a friend. Aside from two dives that I did in Hawaii with my brother and his wife, Amy, I hadn’t really ever been diving with friends or family.
We decided that our first dive would be the Busselton jetty, which I am sitting and looking at as I type this post. Busselton has the longest timber jetty in the southern hemisphere, measuring 2 km out. Constructed in 1865, it’s the landmark that allows you to spot Busselton when you’re in a boat on the water or when you’re walking on the long beach along the bay. The bay is incredibly quiet and calm and I was excited about doing my first dive in a while there as a warm-up for the Swan wreck dive which we were going to do the following day.
Her Dad decided to go along on the dive with us so we all set out on Friday afternoon for the dive shop. The dive boat was filled to capacity with divers. This is an incredibly interesting yet easy dive so it attracts lots of families. The people who ran the boat and the diving company were really funny and incredibly “Australian.” Peter, the captain and owner, was especially “crocodile Dundee-ish” to me, if that is even a word. The two divemasters on board, Brendan and Lindsay, also used the word “crikey!” and the like a time or two, which made me smile.
It took a while to get all of the equipment sorted for the almost twenty divers and then we headed out to the bay and the jetty. I was slightly nervous, as I think I always will be right before I go on a dive when I haven’t been diving in a while, especially after my first dive with Martin in Aceh. The deepest that this dive goes is 8 meters (26 feet), which isn’t much at all and so I wasn’t as nervous as I would’ve been had we been going deeper. We were diving directly under the jetty and swimming amongst the pylons, which held the jetty up so I didn’t feel as if we were far at sea at all.
The jetty dive doesn’t really require that divers have specific buddies or even safety stops, because it is so shallow. They anchored the boat down; we put on all of our equipment, and jumped in. From the boat, we could easily see people walking along the jetty and enjoying the beautiful day. Mal, Krista and I decided to stick together on the dive, so we all dove in one after another. We started at the farthest end of the jetty and kind of zigzagged in between the pylons back towards the underwater observation station, where Rusel was taking pictures.
The dive truly was a very memorable one because it was so different than anything I had ever seen before. The pylons resembled large tree trunks and they were covered in magnificent-colored coral and plants. There were huge shoals of fish swimming around the pylons and I almost got the feeling that I was swimming through a forest and the fish were birds above. When I looked down, the sea floor was covered in canary-yellow seaweed that swayed in the “breeze” created by the gentle underwater waves. Magic!
There were so many divers about that it would’ve been hard to stick together if it hadn’t been for Krista’s blonde hair! Both Mal and I used her hair as a way to stick together and pick her out of the crowd.
Suddenly, I saw something silver diving down to my right and I looked over to see a shiny cormorant bird (also called a shag here in Australia) diving down to try his hand at catching some fish. His metallic-colored feathers and large beak caught my eye but it was his quick movements and sassy attitude that impressed me. He quickly darted back up to the surface, beak empty, and away he went.
We had been instructed not to swim within 10 meters of the underwater observation area, where Rusel was taking pictures, so I stuck to the rule and didn’t swim up to get my picture taken. When we talked to Rusel later he said that not all of the divers followed these instructions and they got quite close (I’ve included some of the pictures). It was funny to be able to see people inside the observation area looking out at us from their dry little perches.
This was the first dive I’ve been on where I wore a full wetsuit, but we definitely needed it, as the water is a bit cold here in Australia. Around the thirty-minute mark Mal made his way to the surface and Krista and I swam around a bit longer -- we still had air. Suddenly, Krista’s weight belt fell off and one of the weights fell to the bottom of the sea and hit the sand. Weight belts are required to help divers stay under and as soon as her weight belt fell off, Krista motioned for me and swam up to the surface with one of her weights. I grabbed the other weight and just sat on the bottom for a few moments more, observing the amazing scene around me.
With the jetty dive behind us, both Krista and I were excited yet a bit nervous about doing the Swan wreck dive the next day. It’s further out in the bay and the wreck is at about 30 meters (or around 100 feet). Her Dad already did this dive a few years ago with her brother, James, so Krista and I were on our own this time.
On Friday night, the night before we were going to do the Swan wreck dive, we decided it would be a good idea to go down to “the pub” for a few drinks as her sister Jemma had driven down from Perth for the weekend. Needless to say, Krista and I weren’t in much of a mood to get out of bed the next morning, let alone attempt a difficult dive. But we had already signed up for it so we peeled ourselves out from under the covers and away we went.
Mercifully, the woman at the dive shop gave us two big mugs of coffee, which helped both of us revive a bit. It was nice because we didn’t have to go through the process of getting our equipment figured out, as we had already dived the previous day and they remembered all of our measurements, etc. We jumped on the boat – which was almost at capacity yet again – and away we went into the harbor.
Krista and I started talking to Martin, a guy from Sydney who had traveled to Busselton just to do the Swan wreck dive. He was doing two dives a day at the same site for four days in a row. He had already done the dive before and raved about it. Talking with Martin took our minds off of the dive ahead and the nervousness and hung-overness we were feeling. Soon, we were at the dive site and putting on our equipment.
If the jetty was for more “beginner” divers, the Swan is definitely advanced. It’s really deep and there are several swim-throughs. The boat was purpose-scuttled in 1997 just for diving and it is absolutely gargantuan – probably just a little bit smaller than the Liberty off the coast of Bali. As I put on all of my dive equipment, I couldn’t ignore the slightly nervous feeling that I had in the pit of my stomach. We were out in the open water, about 2.5 km from shore. Although we could see the shore, I really felt as if we were out in the middle of nowhere just a bit. Krista pointed out that we could see the beach where we had picnicked on Christmas. That comforted me a little bit.
I jumped into the water and grabbed onto the line weaving out behind the boat.
“Somebody lost their weight belt!” one of the other divers who had already dived in yelled.
I looked down – it was my belt. I looked down in the water again and I couldn’t even see the bottom of the ocean or my now-disappeared weight belt. I’m a big one for signs and omens and suddenly I became even more nervous. This had definitely upset my “game.” The divemaster we had been assigned, Brendan, quickly grabbed me extra weights, which we put inside my buoyancy control vest. The problem was quickly rectified but now I was a bit psyched out. The waves were quite big at the surface and we were knocked around a bit as we swam away from the boat.
Krista was my buddy once again but this time it was essential that we have a divemaster, due to the difficulty of the dive. Martin, the guy from Sidney, was also in our group as well as one other couple. We made our way out to the buoy that marked the ship’s underwater location and began our descent.
Diving is one part physical and one part mental. Physically, you are constantly checking your surroundings, your depth, and your air. Mentally, you are checking yourself constantly to make sure that everything is “ok.” With my first dive in Aceh with Martin, I wasn’t able to keep my mind or my physical equipment in check and it was a horrible dive. The deeper we descended into the Australian water down the boat, the more I began to panic just a little bit.
I quickly realized that this could get out of control and downward spiral and was able to nip it in the bud. I concentrated on my breathing, and my surroundings, and suddenly everything was slightly better. I’m the type of person who likes to “talk through” my panic and so this is why diving can be a challenge for me – it’s really just you inside your wetsuit and your mind. However, I am so glad that I was able to practice “mind over matter” in this situation and enjoy the dive. On the first dive, we were only able to inspect the first half of the ship before we were all out of air and began to do our two safety stops before reaching the surface.
We had an hour-long break on the boat and, in true Australian style, they threw some meat “on the barbie” and everyone had a nice lunch. Krista and I had cheese sandwiches, which was just fine with us. Soon, it was time for our second dive and we began to suit up.
This dive was truly one of the most spectacular and special dives I have ever done. I was so much more relaxed this time and completely forgot that I was breathing through a machine. We began exploring the boat and suddenly, down where the boat was resting on the sea, a huge, 6-foot black stingray was swimming around. He was absolutely gorgeous and huge and got quite close to us – he was very curious. We watched him sweep across the bottom of the ocean, circle around, and come back, for quite some time.
I was so enchanted with the stingray and his graceful motions that I didn’t pay attention to everyone in my group disappearing into the boat for a swim-through. I looked up just in time to see the last person’s fins disappearing into the boat. I quickly said goodbye to the stingray and swam in after them. This swim-through (one of many that we did on the dive) was really cool because we went through about three different rooms. Inside the rooms it was slightly dark and the bubbles that accumulated on the ceiling from our exhalations gathered like big, mirrored balls. I had my brief moment of Zen – the reason that I love to dive.
Soon, it was time to resurface again and up we went. Because we were diving pretty deep, air consumption is higher and each of our dives was only about 30 minutes. It’s a lot of preparation and money for essentially only an hour of your life, but in the end it’s so special and worth it that I don’t mind. Doing the dives with Krista was especially nice. It was good to know that if something did go wrong, I had someone along with me who would definitely have my back. We jumped back into the boat and sat in the sunshine all the way back to shore, swapping stories and fish sighted with the other divers on board.