Robbs - Sunday 7th

[Jimbo]

Went down to Robbs on Sunday quite late - around 11:30 or so getting into the water. Just managed to miss a massive crowd of people who got out as we went in, and then had a great dive for about 100 mins or so. Didn't see anything amazingly unusual, but got some shots that I'm pretty happy with and thought I'd share. It was my first time trying to photograph the cardinal? fish with the eggs. I'm sure I can do better and there will be other dives.

P2070992-645.jpg (155.13 KiB) Viewed 364 times

Piggy back

P2070996-647.jpg (158.99 KiB) Viewed 363 times

Babees! Get in my belly!

P2071025-651.jpg (227.22 KiB) Viewed 363 times

[caf]

Some nice subject there Jimbo. Like the positioning of the short tail in your firsh shot.

The large group you just missed nmay have been some of the crew from WAD who frequent Robb's on the odd occasion.

What Oly setup are you using?

[Jimbo]

Thanks for the compliments Caf.

Using Olympus C7070 with Oly PT028 Housing, a couple of 28AD macro lenses, a 28AD wide angle, and a single Inon D2000.

Just realising how much practice is involved in underwater photography. I was shooting lots up to about a year ago, and then did a heap of dives just for fun and didn't bother with a camera. Have only started taking it again recently because I did a trip to Christmas Island in early January, and really enjoyed taking photos. With another few dives under my belt I'm sure I'll remember what I'm doing.

[scuba princess]

Like your nudi shot Jimbo. I shot pretty much the same setup for the past couple of years, although I added a second strobe in July last when I had a week in CI.

Which dive operator did you use on Christmas Island? what was the weather like that time of year? Where did you dive?

cheers

Eleanor

[Jimbo]

Hi Eleanor,

Dived CI with Simon Prince - I think it was Christmas Island Divers. Simon had only just taken it over from the previous owners however he had been working/diving with the company for years.

Weather was typical hot and steam wet season weather. We had a few evening storms, and one day of persistent rain in the week. But overall I think we did pretty well with the weather. Diving wise we did 3 mornings of dives on the northern side of the island before the weather came in and we had to launch from Ethel Beach on the other side. Sites on the North included Coconut Point, West White Beach, Thunder Head Cave, Boat Cave, North Point, Perpendicular Wall, and on the south we did Ryan's Ravine and a couple of others.

We were there at the tail end of red crab season - so we had a bunch of baby red crabs making their way back into the forest. It was also prime whaleshark season, and we managed to snorkel with 3 whale sharks and dive with 1. Also had an amazing experience snorkelling with dolphins - there were a carpet of them below me - but no camera.

Have attached a couple of pics below.

Christmas tree worms on Christmas Island

P1120134.jpg (191.56 KiB) Viewed 289 times

Whaleshark

P1140452.jpg (107.35 KiB) Viewed 290 times

Frigate - up close and personal

P1140453.jpg (146.21 KiB) Viewed 288 times

[scuba princess]

Wow James, scuba with whale sharks! We were there in July, well out of Whale shark season. Hardly any rain, didn't see a red crab for 2 days until we went looking for them in the forest.
We dived with Christmas Island Divers. At that stage Simon was looking at buying into the business. The owners were both off the island and had left it all to Simon. Great guy.

We launched every day from Flying fish Cove and only got as far as the Morgue to the East and dived the north side all the way out to west point where we met a single hammer head shark. Perpendicular wall was my favourite dive.

Highlight for me was seeing a dragon moray.

Eleanor

[Jimbo]

Sounds like a great trip regardless. I missed the Dragon Moray's unfortunately. But managed to see a school of hammerheads out by NW point on the perp wall. My photos of them were all crap - too far away - not enough contrast etc., but in some of my friends photos it is possible to count between 16 and 20 hammerheads in the school. That was such an amazing dive. Started with a few Grey Whalers, continued with the school of hammerheads, just got better with a Mobila and a Manta, and finally had a school of dolphin fish come screaming out of the deep and past us up to the surface. Every single one of us came out of that dive buzzing.

I'd love to go back again, but there are so many good places around the world to go dive .

[scuba princess]

managed to see a school of hammerheads out by NW point on the perp wall. My photos of them were all crap - too far away - not enough contrast etc., but in some of my friends photos it is possible to count between 16 and 20 hammerheads in the school. That was such an amazing dive. Started with a few Grey Whalers, continued with the school of hammerheads, just got better with a Mobila and a Manta, and finally had a school of dolphin fish come screaming out of the deep and past us up to the surface. Every single one of us came out of that dive buzzing.

OH WOW! We didn't have any diving like that. In fact I found diving Christmas Island a little disappointing.

Maybe I should go back, but it's a bit of a hassle and expensive to get to and there are so many other places as you say.

[tammyg]

We dived Christmas Island and Cocos Keeling in December 2006. We loved it as it was our first overseas dive trip. Saw lots of cool things at Christmas - glimpsed a hammerhead, had whalers circling the boat and swam with dolphins plus had the start of the red crab migration. No mobilas or mantas or whalesharks though. We did see mantas and the dugong Kat at Cocos Keeling, plus lots of sharks. Sounds like you scooped the pool James!

It is expensive to get to and then dive so would like to go back one day but there are other places on the list too.

[Jimbo]

One of the people in our crew has been diving for something like 30 years, including nearly 20 of fulltime running a live aboard, and she had never seen a hammerhead. She said she cried underwater when that school went through. It was quite amazing.

I can see why people would be disappointed in Christmas if you didn't get the big pelagic's. I found that most of the wall diving was very similar. That said, you could poke around and find some cool stuff on nearly every dive, and noone can knock being able to dive in board shorts, a rashy, and with no weight in up to 50m of vis. Certainly no complaints from me.

[scuba princess]

noone can knock being able to dive in board shorts, a rashy, and with no weight in up to 50m of vis. Certainly no complaints from me.

Well, you would have been welcome on our trip because there wasn't enough lead for the group. Not sure we got 50m vis either. Sounds like you scored big time on your trip.

I only saw the single hammerhead on our dive because I heard my friend scream out with excitement underwater. lol