Category: Shore Diving

A Spectacular Weekend Away at Nelson Bay, NSW.

THE DIVE SITE
Nelson Bay at Port Stephens is one of the hidden gems of diving on the Eastern seaboard of Australia. Whilst it’s secrets are well known to the divers of Sydney and the central coast the majority of Australia is yet to discover the amazing encounters waiting for them below the waters of Nelson Bay. You can encounter Grey Nurse sharks in large numbers, Port Jackson sharks,pipe fish, sea horses, seals, endemic nudibranchs, turtles, rays, and a myriad of fish. A true wide angle and macro photographer’s paradise with enough sea life to keep any diver struggling with which direction to look next!

Boat diving in Nelson Bay with Lets Go Adventures is a fun, exciting and memorable experience. Whether you want to dive with grey nurse sharks at Broughton Island, or prefer exploring some of the unique local islands, Lets Go Adventures caters for all experience levels. Their site selection on the day of our dive is determined by us and the most experienced dive skippers in Port Stephens; Chris Norman, Adam Shorter, Pete Jensen & Jimmy Dodd who individually hold over 20-30+ years each, skippering/diving in the stunning waters of Port Stephens. They also offer a free guide service to everyone also with Nelson Bay’s Most experienced dive master crew.

“MV Tomaree” is the most comfortable dive boat in Nelson Bay. The MV Tomaree has fast new engines, a twin hull for stability, a large dive deck area, and onboard toilet. You just need to come for a dive with them to see why local divers of Nelson Bay voted them winners in the Boating, Fishing & Camping Category of the Port Stephens Business Awards. Dive sites include :

Broughton Island : Looking Glass, Shark Gutters, Elephant Rock, North Rock, Cod Rock, East Head, Bubble Cave & Spider Cave.

Local island and wreck dives : Little wreck, North East Cabbagetree Island, The Pinnacle, Safety Cove Boondelbah Island, Little Island Gutters, The Oakland Wreck, The Macleay Wreck, Government Wharf, Fingal Sponges & Red Patch.

Shore Dives : Fly Point, Halifax, Little Beach, The Pipeline & Seahorse Gardens.

For what you can expect check out Dave Harasti’s video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGgr2n1ec-s

DIVE INFORMATION

-Suitable for Open Water Divers (certified to 18 metres), however Advanced Open Water Certification is advised to ensure all sites are accessible to you
-Depth ranges from 6 – 34 metres
-EAN (nitrox) is available at $10 extra per dive.
-Diving by yourself? We will buddy you up with another diver with similar experience

TRIP DATES

Friday, 16- Sunday, 18 December 2016

PRICE
$600 per person

The following are recommended upgrades for this trip
Diving on Nitrox@ $ 10 per dive or $50 for the weekend
PADI Advanced Open Water Course @ $250 per person
PADI Deep Diver speciality Course @ $195 per person
PADI Enriched Air speciality Course @ $245 per person for manual learning or $345 per person for on-line learning (both prices include 2 Nitrox fills)

WHAT’S INCLUDED

All air fills
5 dives – 4 boat dives (double at North Broughton Island, double at Oakland wreck and local island site and a shore dive)
2 night’s accommodation
Return private transport
Tanks & Weights

WHAT’S EXCLUDED

All Dive Gear (excluding tanks & weights)
Travel Insurance
Personal spending money
All Meals are at leisure

GEAR HIRE
PDS is able to provide you with a wetsuit, BCD, regulator, computer, tanks and weights for the weekend and please communicate your requirements on the booking form. Each diver must provide their own mask, snorkel, fins and boots (not available for hire). Underwater camera and torches are also available and are subject to availability.

ITINERARY

We will departing Brisbane (Woolloongabba) just on midday on Friday and from here you will be driven in our company van to Nelson Bay. Upon arrival we will check in to our accommodation and get a good night sleep ready to dive the Broughton Island on Saturday (double dive and a shore dive in the afternoon). On Sunday, we will do 2 boat dives in the morning to the Oakland wreck and another local island site before heading back to Brisbane after lunch. An itinerary with timings will be sent to you closer to the date of the trip.

SPECIALITIES SUITABLE FOR THIS TRIP
Advanced Open Water (highly recommended on this weekend)
Enriched Air (Nitrox)
Deep Diver
Digital Underwater Photographer
Underwater Photographer
Underwater Videographer
Peak Performance Buoyancy
Dry Suit Diver
Shark Awareness
Underwater Naturalist

Note- Some specialties are site and conditions dependent. All efforts will be made to complete course dives on a booked trip, however if conditions do not allow it the diver will have to book onto another trip to complete the course requirements.

Extra Special Note – Thank you to Jim Dodd of UW Photography.com.au for allowing us to use these incredible images for promotion. We hope to try and emulate them.

September 3, 2014
Night Dives at the Gold Coast Seaway

THE DIVES

The Gold Coast Seaway has greater variety and more recorded species of any shore dive in Australia. With over 400 different species found in the seaway we are lucky to have it right on our back door step! You can dive a site a thousand times and when you dive it for the first time at night it feels like an entirely different site. So come down and join us and rediscover our local under the cover of darkness!

If you have already completed a night dive as part of your Advanced Open Water then you only have to join us for one night to complete the practical component of your Night diver specialty. If you haven’t then we will need you to join us for both nights.

Brief History of the Gold Coast Seaway –

In 1984 a project commenced to stabilize the Nerang River estuary which links the Gold Coast Broadwater and Nerang River to the Pacific Ocean. The purpose was to ensure a safer entrance for recreational boats, the trawler fleet and other commercial boats accessing the Pacific from the Gold Coast and to also provide permanent point at which to pump treated effluent water out to sea. In addition, the objective was to reduce the northward sand drift from forming bars in the entrance to the seaway and blocking access to small craft. As a result, a sand pumping jetty was installed south of the seaway and the sand is pumped north across the seaway through a bypass pipe and out onto the beach of South Stradbroke Island. Prior to the Gold Coast Seaway being constructed there was an area at the southern end of Crab Island known as “The Deep Hole”. This was a thriving ecosystem that was home to many fish. However, on the opening of the Gold Coast Seaway in 1986, this filled with sand and the habitat was lost.

The sand bypass pipe was initially set under the sand at 6m, with the planned seafloor at low tide to be approximately 4.5 metres, but the tidal currents that filled The Deep Hole with sand quickly uncovered the pipe. It has since remained largely exposed. Since being uncovered, 10 upright supports were installed anchoring the pipe above the seaway floor, 13 metres being the deepest point the bypass pipe reaches and in some places the pipe is 3 m off the seaway floor. This pipe, the effluent outlet pipe and the rock walls of the Gold Coast Seaway have gradually over the last 20 years replaced the lost habitat of The Deep Hole and now offer a special and significant marine environment.

DIVE INFORMATION

Suitable for Open Water Divers (certified to 18 metres)
Depth ranges from 4 – 18 metres
Diving by yourself? We will buddy you up with another diver with similar experience

DATES

Monday, 29 April 2019
Tuesday, 30 April 2019

To book onto anyone of our night dives click HERE

PRICE

$50 per person

The following are recommended upgrade for this dive
PADI Night Diver speciality course @ $295 per person

WHAT’S INCLUDED

1 x Night dive at the Gold Coast Seaway
Tank and weights
Dive Master services

WHAT’S EXCLUDED

All Dive Gear (excluding tanks & weights)

GEAR HIRE

PDS is able to provide you with a wetsuit, BCD, regulator, computer, tanks and weights for the dives and please communicate your requirements on the booking form. Full gear hire is $40 for the dive and individual pricing is available upon request. You must provide your own mask, snorkel, fins and boots these items are not available for hire from us

HOW TO BOOK

Download the booking form attached to the page. Complete the required fields, scan and email to [email protected].

OR

Click HERE to book online

Please do not turn up unannounced as we may not have enough tanks and weights for everyone.

July 4, 2014
Palau – The world’s first national marine sanctuary / An unspoilt tropical island paradise

Dive Information

Palau’s warm tropical waters are legendary amongst divers for their dramatic sheer walls rising from the depths to within inches of the surface and capped with thriving coral reefs. Palau is home to over 1,300 species of fish and more than 700 species of coral. World renowned for its’ marine bio-diversity and abundance of large pelagic animals. Palau also offers avid wreck divers one of Micronesia’s largest collections of WWII shipwrecks.

Check out this incredible video from Lee Burghard to see what you can expect!

Palau is a divers dream! A true one stop shop when it comes to diving! Healthy reefs, stunning walls, beautiful hard corals and soft corals, lots of sharks, huge mantas, turtles on every dive and huge schools of fish, tiny seahorses, elusive mandarin fish and lots and lots of tiny critters, all topped off with an amazing collection of WWII wrecks!

For more information on Palau and the diving in Palau, please view the attach information sheet on this page- Palau- Micronesia.

Palau Siren

The 40 metre luxury liveaboard was launched in July 2012 and offers either fixed double or twin bed cabins (2 cabins can be converted from twin to double). The dining area is very spacious offering a great setting for all your meals. The dive deck is perhaps the most spacious and comfortable you would have experience.

The Palau Siren has designated indoor and outdoor workstations for charging, preparation and maintenance of your camera and video equipment. Large storage drawers for your peripheral items are avaliable, as well as numerous charging points, with adapters. Large rinse tanks, soley available for camera and video equipement are also available.

Trip Dates

21 September – 5 October 2018

14 days/ 13 nights ex Brisbane

Price

$6,684 per diver

What’s Included

Airfares and Taxes
Return airfares ex Brisbane to Koror flying via Taipei with China Airlines
Australian departure taxes and applicable airline taxes (subject to change)

Accommodation, Meals, Transfers and Diving
1 night twin share accommodation at Palasia Hotel- Palau
3 nights twin share accommodation at The Rose Garden Resort- Palau
Breakfast daily whilst in Palau
3 days diving (2 dives per day) with Sams Dive Tours- Includes use of tanks, weights and dive guide services
Transfers in Palau
1 night twin share accommodation at The Hotel Manka- Taipei

Liveaboard
7 nights twin share cabin accommodation aboard the Palau Siren
All meals, tea, coffee, juices, soft drinks, water and beer whilst aboard
Free nitrox for nitrox certified divers
Free use of diving equipment (excludes dive computers and torches)
up to 4 dives per day (except on arrival and departure days)- includes use of tanks, weights and dive guide services

What’s Excluded
Travel Insurance, personal spending monies, excess luggage fees
Marine park fee of $200 USD- payable on arrival
Government permits: Rock Island permit $50 USD/ Jellyfish Lake $100 USD
Koror departure tax and environmental fee $120 USD per person
Koror visa fee $50 USD per person

Booking Requirements

To secure your place on this trip, please complete an online booking form (see link below) and return it together with a non-refundable deposit of $500 per person to Dive Adventure. Payment installments will be required throughout the duration of the booking. Details of the payment plan will be confirmed at the time of booking confirmation.

https://www.diveadventures.com.au/pages/contact.php

PADI Specialities Suitable for this trip

Advanced Open Water
Underwater Navigation
Nitrox
Deep Diver
Digital Underwater Photographer
Underwater Photographer
Underwater Videographer
Search and Recovery
Peak Performance Buoyancy
Night Diver
Shark Awareness
Underwater Naturalist

This is the perfect way to complete a specialty course as you have already paid for the dives!!

March 26, 2014
Project AWARE Clean Up!

THE CLEAN-UP

Project AWARE Foundation is a growing movement of scuba divers protecting the ocean planet – one dive at a time.

Over the past two decades of underwater conservation we’ve learned that divers are true leaders in ocean protection. We’re ocean heroes numbering in the millions across the globe. We believe together our actions will make a huge impact and will help to rescue the ocean.

With new programs and more online resources than ever before, Project AWARE supports an unprecedented global movement of divers acting in their own communities to protect oceans and implement lasting change.

We’re focusing in on two major ocean issues –Sharks in Peril and Marine Debris, or trash in our ocean. Truly, there are many conservation issues converging on our ocean planet at once, but we’re concentrating on these serious problems where scuba divers are uniquely positioned to directly and positively affect real, long-term change in these two areas.

We will concentrate our clean-up at the Gold Coast Seaway and whilst we clean up our oceans on every dive; unfortunately, rubbish is added more quickly than we can clear it. Particularly with fishing refuse – line, hooks, lead, lures etc. So it is up to us to clear our favourite dive sites to make sure they are kept rubbish free and the ocean residents are not choking on filth. So periodically we organise a clean up to help get on top of the growing problem.

DIVE INFORMATION

Suitable for Open Water Divers (certified to 18 metres)
Depth ranges from 6 – 28 metres
Diving by yourself? We will buddy you up with another diver with similar experience

DATE & LOCATION

Monday, 24 September 2018

PRICE & INCLUSIONS

$30 per person

A Donation to Project AWARE
Rubbish collection bags
Morning/ Afternoon Tea
Tank & weights

WHAT’S EXCLUDED
All Dive Gear (excluding tanks & weights)

GEAR HIRE

PDS is able to provide you with a wetsuit, BCD, regulator, computer, tanks and weights for the dives and please communicate your requirements on the booking form. Fulll gear hire is $30 for the dive and individual pricing is available on booking. You must provide your own mask, snorkel, fins and boots these items are not available for hire from us.

ITINERARY

We will meet you at the South West Wall at the Gold Coast at 9:30 am. We will have a sausage waiting for you upon your arrival and once everyone has arrived, you will be given a briefing, paired up with a dive buddy (if you do not already have one), gear up and get in the water for the clean-up. We expect that you will be finished with the clean-up by midday.

Please do not turn up unannounced as we may not have enough tanks, bags and food for everyone.

HOW TO BOOK

Download the booking form attached to the page. Complete the required fields, scan and email to [email protected].

January 13, 2014