The first day of December and we were to be diving – fingers crossed – Julian Rocks just out from nearby Byron Bay. Yesterday the weather forecast for today left us feeling that today would all be a bit ‘touch and go’ but lo and behold during the night the weather had greatly improved, there had been no further storms and the morning was all bright and blue skies as we awoke – hoorah. The guide at the dive shop had said yesterday that someone would ring us today to let us know the state of play but no-one had yet been in touch and to make matters worse, we could not get hold of anyone there either but we were going to go to Byron Bay no matter what, so we set off anyhow just hoping for good news when we got there.
Thankfully the Gods of Diving – Poseidon or Neptune or whoever it is – were on our side so it was all green for go, for the first dive at least and, if our luck held and the rains held off, then the second dive would be a goer too – hoorah! We got kitted up at the shop and we are actually beginning to find that we are getting much more used to the scuba routine now – being somewhat ‘old hands’ lol – but we still have a bit of ‘healthy’ trepidation about the diving itself and my wife’s increased by 100% when she saw that our transport to the rocks was to be a small RIB, no toilet on there my Chicky! We were soon aboard and off though and, as expected as it was still a bit choppy, the journey was not unlike a rollercoaster ride where onlookers throw salty water at you as you go past! Liz’s reaction as ever with rollercoaster type motions was to do what she does best in these situations – screams loudly and with great gusto, a bit too much gusto for some of the other divers and crew too!
The swell was quite high but we soon enough got out the boat into the sea and down to the depths via a mooring rope, kindly left for us by some Turkish Moor one can only assume! As can sometime happen when the tide is a’tumble, the visibility was not exactly the best but it becomes a difficult balancing act between the waters being how the fish like them – i.e. full of particulate matter = possibility food = no great viz OR it being how we would like it – i.e. no particulate matter and the visibility of that an aquarium but no food = no fish!! … Doh! Ah the riddle of the sea eh!
The dive was still a good one though as we managed to see a couple of the most strange looking Wobbegong Sharks who turned out to be fast asleep – possibly rocked to sleep by the rolling sea! We also saw a wee green turtle, a reasonably large Bull Ray and some of its smaller cousins, the Stingrays, a large Grouper and a couple of very bright Starfish as well as some smaller fish with extraordinarily colourful markings, none of which I managed to get a photo of. Sometimes by the time I get the camera ready the ‘stuff’ has already gone so I find it better to simply watch them and admire the view and then if they stick around only then do I venture to try to take a photo.
Before our next dive we had to come back in to the dive shop to change our equipment as our little diving RIB was simply too small to carry the additional equipment needed for a second dive. When we got back out this dive was much the same as the first except additionally we also saw some lobsters and a Large Loggerhead Turtle with it’s tag on it which reminded us of our recent visit to Mon Repos to see a mother giving birth, maybe this was her, who knows eh! Even our safety stop gave us the chance to see yet another turtle who, like ourselves was coming up for a bit of fresh air, they are still definitely one of our favourites creatures of the sea.
The return journey to Byron Bay was once again a bumpy ride but it was not so bumpy that the ride did not yield one last treasure, a dolphin jumping about in the waves. Our captain stopped the boat to see if the dolphin would be inquisitive enough to come over and have a look at us (!) but it must have been in a hurry to go somewhere as it did not want to know. Still it was a perfect end to what had been a good and very interesting couple of dives.
Once back in town and dried off our next ‘job’ was to post our Christmas ‘presents’ back home to the UK but this turned out to be a bit more difficult to do than we thought as the town had a power cut. So as the electricity had gone off we were asked by the staff to vacate the post office. So somewhat stifled from our ‘task in hand’ we went to the supermarket to get some shopping done and as supermarkets, like cockroaches, are unstoppable they turned out to be still open for business! As we neared the end of our shopping the electricity came back on – hoorah – so we went back to the PO and completed our mission for Christmas.
Our ‘work’ here done we left Byron Bay to the school kids who seemed to have all of a sudden taken over the place and so we continued our slow but steady Australian migration southwards. We stopped at Lennox Head for a bit of a refuel and the road to the place reminded us both of back home, Cornwall and the grey clouds seemed to add to the illusion. After our pitstop we carried on to try and get as close as we could to a place called Yamba for tomorrow’s look-see. We pitched up our wee camp and planned our next moves before I cooked us up a curry and just as we had finished eating, the heavens, as the heavens are wont to do in these parts, just opened up and let the lightening loose along with much rain and grumbling from the clouds.
Our Excellent Adventure! 