Logbook Scuba Dive # 317 - North Wall Corner
| Logbook Scuba Dive # 317 - North Wall Corner |
Good| Cylinder Set #1 | |||
| Cylinder Type: | Cylinder Size: | Working Pressure: | Supply Type: |
| Steel |  15 litres |
232 bar |  Open Circuit (OC) |
| O2: | He: | Min. PPO2: | Max. PPO2: |
| 21% | 0% | - | 1.4 bar |
 EAN 21 |
MOD: | EAD: | END: |
| 56.6 m | 56.6 m | 56.6 m | |
| Start Pressure: | End Pressure: | Diff. Pressure: | |
| 220 bar | 72 bar | 148 bar | |
| Avg. Depth: | SAC Rate: | ||
| - | - | ||
| Avg. Depth: | SAC Rate: | ||
| 18.31 m | 29.05 litres/min | ||
| Gas Mixture: | |||
| Air | |||
| Dive Captain: Lloyd Borrett, VSAG Boat: "Miles Ahead", John Lawler's 6.5m Haynes Signature, 175HP, Sorrento I took on the role of Dive Captain for the VSAG dive day on Sunday, 16 January 2011. Very quickly we had 4 boats and plenty of divers keen to participate. On Saturday, the SeaBreeze wind and wave forecast looked good and were backed up by David Kelly’s observations of the bay and back beaches. David also told me that divers were reporting good viz just inside the heads. So I was hopeful that it would still be good with a flood slack water on Sunday morning. The weather conditions were looking quite good for an early start, but with a forecast that the winds might get up in the afternoon. Bay Boating Forecast Local Waters Forecast for Port Phillip Issued at 4:40 pm EDT on Saturday 15 January 2011 Weather Situation A weak high pressure ridge lies over Victoria. A low pressure system will pass south of Tasmania late Sunday and during Monday with associated cold fronts expected to pass through Bass Strait. Another ridge of high pressure will extend from the Bight to Victoria later Tuesday. Forecast for Sunday Winds: Southwesterly 5 to 10 knots tending south to southwesterly 10 to 15 knots around midday then increasing to 15 to 20 knots during the afternoon. Seas: Below 0.5 metres increasing to 0.5 to 1 metres by early evening. Melbourne Weather Forecast Issued at 4:21 pm EDT on Saturday 15 January 2011 Forecast for Sunday Sunny day. Isolated showers in the early evening. Winds southeast to southwesterly averaging up to 25 km/h. City Centre Possible late shower. Min 17 Max 28 Around Melbourne Geelong Min 14 Max 27 Frankston Min 17 Max 24 Every boat dive that Cheryl had done in Melbourne has been in marginal and/or difficult wind and wave conditions. She thought she was jinxed. Combine that with my track record as VSAG Dive Captain of having to cancel because of bad weather, and we were still very uncertain as to what might spring up overnight. Thus we asked everyone to put in an extra prayer the night before, if that’s their thing, or keep their fingers crossed if that works for them. :-) The boat to diver allocations I made for Sunday were: David Kelly (BL) - Sorrento + Ken Methven (BL) + Takae + Alex Ivanov John Lawler (BL) - Sorrento + Lloyd Borrett (BL) + Cheryl Lees + Denise Rogers (BL) Peter Briggs (BL) - Sorrento + Alan Storen (BL) + Benita McDonough (BL) David Geekie (BL) - Queenscliff + Trevor Williams (BL) + Pam (BL) + family guest We had an excellent opportunity for a 9:50 am flood slack water dive first up. For Sunday the tide streams at the Port Phillip Heads were: Slack Maximum Time Time Rate 04:11 07:30 2.3 09:51 13:28 -4.7 17:26 21:20 4.1 This meant the Lonsdale Wall, Nepean Wall, Eliza Ramsden, plus Awesome and Knawesome Reefs all were prospective morning dive sites, subject to shipping movements. As usual we would decide on the day which site we’d dive, but my personal preference was to take another look at one of those two magnificent reefs as we don’t get to dive there very often. On Sunday morning Cheryl and I drove separately to Sorrento as she wanted to leave straight away after diving and go to the Australia vs England One day International cricket match. I dropped in at The Scuba Doctor on the way down, as did Dave Kelly, John Lawler, Benita, Ken, Takae etc. Eventually those departing from Sorrento all gathered in the top boat trailer parking area. Unfortunately the day was popular with fishos and day boaters, so the boat trailer parking area was already almost full which made gearing up and loading boats more difficult than usual. We'd set a departure time of 8:30 a.m., but were 30 minutes late getting away. Once all three boats were launched and everyone aboard, we headed down to Queenscliff and joined up with David Geekie and crew coming out from there. We were hoping to dive Awesome or Knawsome Reef, so we put in a call to the Lonsdale lighthouse to check on the shipping movements. Unfortunately a ship was heading out during our slack water dive window. After discussions with JL and other boat owners by radio, I moved the dive to the North Wall Corner on Lonsdale Wall. David Geekie put a shot line down and we waited for slack water. There were commercial dive boats to the north and south of us. On our boat JL and Denise geared up ready to dive first. JL thought about deploying a buoy line for the dive but decided against it given the likelihood of it catching on the wall. We watched as divers from the other boats went first, with a few going a bit too early and having to deal with the current still running. Eventually JL and Denise rolled in. Cheryl and I got our gear together while they dived so as to be ready for a quick change over. Later Alan Storen called out that JL and Denise were up near him, so we motored over and picked them up. They reported good viz and that they'd had a great dive, finding the old large anchor chain links at one point. Cheryl and I got into our gear while JL positioned the boat. We started towards the bouy and descended once we had the buoy line in sight. We followed the buoy line down and then headed towards where the wall edge should be. Eventually the wall edge came into sight and we went over the edge onto the wall and let the current take us southwards. We gently drifted along the wall taking in the amazing sights. The more I go far and away and dive elsewhere in Australia and overseas, the more I appreciate being truly blessed to have Lonsdale Wall to explore as a local dive site. Most every dive destination has something great to offer. Sometimes that's about the marine life and topography you find underwater, as in the case of Lonsdale Wall. Sometimes it's just about the locals and your fellow divers that make it memorable, as in the case of diving with VSAG. Towards the end of our dive we started to see other divers from one of the Dive Victoria charter boats. As the time to start our ascent approached, we made our way to the top of the wall and I shot my self inflating Buddy DSMB. That thing is just so cool! We did a 2 minute deep stop at 16 metres and then a safety stop at 5 metres. By now we could see plenty of divers nearby and we surfaced in a forest of DSMBs. The Dive Victoria's boat Sea Dragon was just to the south of us picking up divers. JL's dive boat was quite a distance to the North of us. There was no way the VSAG boats were going to pick us out in amongst all of these divers. We'd just have to wait until Dive Victoria picked up it's divers and JL realised where we were. Sea Dragon came over and offered to call up JL on the radio. Problem was I wasn't sure which channel VSAG used. I thought it might be 69 or 72. (Yes, you'd think I'd know by now.) Turned out it was 73, so Sea Dragon wasn't able to raise any of them. (You'd better bet I'm going to remember that radio channel number from now on.) After a while Sea Dragon came in to pick up two other divers very close to us and suggested we come aboard as well. Then they continued to pick up other divers as Cheryl and I got to catch up with divers on the boat that we knew. Mike Reed climbed out of the water and did a double take, not expecting to see me on the charter boat. With all of its divers aboard, plus two more, Sea Dragon moved North to the VSAG boats. After thanking the crew we stepped back into the water. JL then picked us up. Cheryl and I would again like to thank the Sea Dragon crew and the team at Dive Victoria for their assistance. This 'incident' highlighted some issues with diving on the wall which we see come up time and time again. When we dive two up and two down, and try to get in both pairs of divers in the slack water period, we typically run overtime. Thus we try to get divers in early, which means the first pair of divers have to cope with some current early in their dive. Then if they stay down too long, or everyone takes too long retrieving divers and getting the second pair of divers into the water, the second pair end up doing a drift dive along the wall for their full dive or the latter part of it. This means they can often end up a long way from the shot line where the dive boat will be waiting for them. Ending up a long way from the boat on days where the waves aren't a problem and no-one else is around isn't too bad. The dive boat will easily spot your DSMB. But if it isn't calm, or you end up in amongst a heap of other divers, as we did on this dive, your boat crew are going to have problems finding you. Of course this assumes they're looking. In our case the boat crew thought they could see diver's bubbles near the shot line, so they weren't looking further afield for us! Towards the end they were starting to get a bit worried about how much air we might have left! Of course their are solutions. The simple and safest solution is that only one pair gets to dive the wall. The other pair miss out. Using a buoy line is another solution. However, it can often get snagged on such dives. Plus, if we'd used a bouy line on this dive, we could have easily ended up entangled in the DSMB lines of other divers at the end of the dive. Carrying extra safety devices could help. If either of us were carrying a signal mirror, then we could have tried to signal the VSAG boats. Cheryl has a whistle, but it wouldn't have been heard over the distance involved. I have an Air Alert signal horn, but it fell apart while cleaning the dive gear the week before. I put it back together, but didn't want to take it on a dive until someone competent checked it out. I also have an Icon IC-M33 VHF handheld radio. It's waterproof to 3 metres and floats. It can be squeezed into a dive canister I have that's supposed to be good to 300 metres. Thus it would be possible to take the radio with me on dives and then call up the boat in such situations. (Assuming I knew what channel they were on!) I've read about people doing this, but have never tried it myself. Maybe I should, as there are other situations where it could be useful. Anyway, with everyone back on board the VSAG dive boats we started to think about second dives. JL and Dense had eaten their lunch while we were diving. We were mindful that the winds were supposed to pick up in the afternoon, so we decided to start getting ready for a second dive then and there. After some calling around between the VSAG dive boats a plan of attack was formed. Briggsy's boat would do their second dives with us in Port Phillip. Dave Kelly and crew wanted to head outside and dive the back beaches. Dave Geekie headed back to Queenscliff to drop off Pam and their family friend. Then Dave and Trevor headed out to join up with Dave Kelly. |
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