An amazing story just popped up in the local Sunday Newspaper relating to a monster shark lurking off the main coast area around Brisbane. Yesterday a 3.5mtr White Pointer (Great White) was almost bitten in half by an unseen predator, the general opinion is that it was another White Pointer but with the bite marks that it left on the smaller version the monster must be in the region of 5/6mtrs. Just to put things in perspective the picture shown with this article is about the size of the one almost bitten in half. The body was found just off Stradbroke Island caught in shark nets there to protect swimmer on the local beach.

One great thing has come to light with the publishing of this story the amount of public opinion that is in favour to leave the sharks alone, I was very surprised at the feeling of the majority of people mainly saying that ‘they are king of the food chain in the sea, leave the poor buggers alone’

Warrior’s rusting place beneath the waves.

Finally at 2.0pm on Sunday 9th October the 31year old frigate HMAS Canberra finally slipped beneath the waves off shore from Port Phillip Heads, Victoria.

With a muffled boom some 16 underwater charges inside the hull detonated and within two minutes she dipped her bows and slipped very gracefully below the surface. It was not the easiest sinking as the weather had delayed the scuttling from Saturday to Sunday and just before the given time she lost an anchor giving the organisers an extra headache as they tried desperately to hold her in position. But as soon as the explosives blew the bottom out of her she went down extremely fast.

A group of clearance divers have since been down to inspect the wreck and they report that all is well totally upright and will now be left to settle for at least a month before diving will be allowed to commence on the wreck.

In the scheme of things diving on a Saturday is normally a stress free day out with the boys, but this last Saturday was an exception to the rule. I met up with a couple of guys from the local dive club and with what I do not mind admitting a tremendous amount of trepidation we set of for Scarborough, Brisbane and to get aboard the Ocean Cat and within 30 minutes of casting off for our 90minute trip to Hendersons Reef or as its called by the local Hendo’s.

On board the Ocean Cat was us and 7 other divers all busy getting their kit together and chatting about the up and coming couple of dives.

After a very smooth trip out to the eastern side of Moreton Island watching a number of Hump Backed Whales glide past we soon anchored in an almost flat calm sea above the reef.

My excuse is its winter, and its cold, wet and very miserable at the moment. So anybody who tells you Australia is the land of sunshine and heat is talking out of their wetsuit.
Since the onset of the inclement weather diving has taken a back seat but last weekend I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time.

I got to see one of the wonders of the world, Migaloo.

Migaloo is an Aboriginal name and the translation means White Fella and he is a White Humpback Whale and the only one known to exist on the planet.

Me along with a number of guys from our local dive club arrived at Point Lookout at the Northern End of Strabroke Island and we were looking forward to a couple of drift dives, we were devastated when told that all the diving had been cancelled.

We were told that the area was being invaded by baitfish and that it would be too dangerous to dive anywhere near to them.

For blokes like me who are relatively new to the area I did not really understand the implications of this statement and not wanting to show my ignorance on the subject I just kept quiet.

Surface Supply Diving Systems.
In Oz it’s called a Hookah.

As far as kit reviews go this has to be one of the more unusual, it is without doubt a great piece of kit, but it certainly has its limits, but more of that later.

As a diver living along the Queensland coast a few things always make you sit up and listen, one being the sightings of the dreaded box jellyfish which without equal is the most deadly creature on earth, and number two, the news is full of it at the moment shark attacks. I have only been here since November but I am an avid news watcher and almost every day there is an incident involving a shark. While doing some research I have found that this last summer over here has had more attacks reported than any other year.

As Scuba Mike said there are a great many different styles of BCD on the market. When I first started diving it was with the normal style of jacket, large pockets loads of D’ rings etc, etc, but one thing that did bother me was the limited lift that it gave. Also it was no good when wanting to twin up as it just was not man enough for the job, so when a friend turned up with a Wing it immediately caught my interest.

AP Valves or better known by their name Buddy make some great kick ass BCD’s and along with their world famous Buddy Commando they also make a Tek Wing.

You know what its like, the phone rings and someone says fancy diving, but today I said no thanks not in the mood.

What a week, the weather has been the number one topic in Australia and probably most of you European based people have seen the news coming out of South Australia with the massive fires that are raging across the state, what has been a little overshadowed is the flooding in North Queensland which in its way has been as devastating as the fires but luckily without the loss of life.

But a story that has struck me deeply this week is the death of a 5 year old boy.

Sinking the HMAS Canberra. Melbourne Australia.