Dive Details

Location

Date

14 July, 2013

Time

8:34am - 9:35am

Details

After a short boat ride from Wollongong Harbour, we arrived on the southern side of Martin Islet keen to get some seal action. While we were getting ready a pod of dolphins swam past very close to the boat. Sheree was lucky enough to be in the water and they swam right past her. After we jumped in, two more pods swam past, one beside us and one below us. In both cases seals would be swimming along behind them, trying to keep up. This was shaping up to be a great dive.

We descended to around 15 metres and waited for the fun to start. There were 2 or 3 large stingrays swimming over the bottom so we had to hang off the bottom to avoid them. It wasn't long before the seals came down to check us out. They seem to prefer people that are also playing and Gary was their most popular as he spun and turned they spun and turned with him. The seals were also playing with each other, biting and spinning together. During the dive we could also hear whales calling.

At the end of the dive I moved up into the shallows for my safety stop and I'm not sure if it was that or the fact that the other divers had left the water but I got a lot of attention from the seals. One after the other would swim in very close to eye ball me. It was fantastic.

Unfortunately, there was a lot of crap in the water (as can be seen in the video) so the photos aren't as good as I would have liked. All in all, it was a brilliant dive.

Buddy

Ian Jackson

Seas

Flat

Visibility

10-15 metres

Duration

61 minutes

Maximum depth

18.4 m

Average depth

11.6 m

Water temperature

16.8°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Cyber Aqualand Nx

Tides at Port Kembla AEST

Note that tides at dive site may vary from above location.

Low

6:01am

0.39m

High

12:21pm

1.34m

Low

6:08pm

0.62m

Video

Camera gear

Camera

Nikon D7000

Lens

Tokina AT-X Pro 12-24mm f/4 +4 dipoter

Housing

Ikelite 6801.70

Lens port

Ikelite 6" Dome Port 5503.51

Strobe

2 x Ikelite SubStrobe DS161

Photographs

Depth information, where present, indicates the depth of the camera when the photograph was taken and can be used to approximate the depth of the subject.

Australian fur seal, Arctocephalus pusillus. 12.6 m.
 

Australian fur seal, Arctocephalus pusillus. 7.1 m.
 

Australian fur seal, Arctocephalus pusillus. 5.7 m.
 

Australian fur seal, Arctocephalus pusillus. 5.8 m.
 

Australian fur seal, Arctocephalus pusillus. 5.9 m.
 

Australian fur seal, Arctocephalus pusillus. 6.1 m.
 

Australian fur seal, Arctocephalus pusillus. 5.3 m.
 

Australian fur seal, Arctocephalus pusillus. 4.9 m.