today was my only planned dive in tasmania, i had been emailing with underwater adventures and she told me that there were sea dragons living around hobart. i can't remember wanting to see anything underwater as much as i've wanted to find a sea dragon. sue told me to meet her at one of the docks at 7:45, there would be one other woman diving with me who was equally excited to find them.
i got to the dock at 7:40, georgina got there at 7:43, wait, small talk, wait, wait, no boat. finally at 8:20 sue shows up, apparently a cruise ship came past while she was loading tanks and the wake knocked 2 overboard, sue had to dive for them. great start.
the boat wasn't too nice, there were 6 tanks sort of bungeed to the sides, kinda messy, stuff everywhere, sue seemed pretty nice. she didn't have any crew so she wasn't going to dive with us which immediately annoyed both of us since its much easier to find things underwater if you've seen them before. i remember getting directions in cairns for an entire colony of clownfish and never finding it, so now georgina and i are going to have to locate an animal that looks like kelp. great.
we travelled about 50 minutes to our first site at betsey island. the sky was grey and rainy and the wind was picking up. there were dozens of crayfish pots in the area that sue wanted to drop anchor so it took us a while to get settled in. she got me a selection of 7mil wetsuits, all of them covered in dog hair (apparently her dog finds them very comfy to sleep on). i finally got one to fit, which meant that i could fasten it properly and still manage to breathe a little. i was actually worried that in darker water in a suit that was making me claustrophobic i might actually freak out. but i got ready, suit, boots, hood, gloves, 32 pounds of weights, everything. i could barely bend my arms. georgina was using a dry suit. it took us about an hour to get geared up.
now the moment i'd been dreading, touching water. it was 16 degrees. and in a 7mil wetsuit it felt like 16 degrees. so fucking cold. it was like getting wrapped in ice, then buried in snow. then stabbed in the head with icicles. i can't remember ever being that cold in my life. every time i moved my head to look around water would channel straight down my back. but its for a purpose.
the visibility was about 5 meters, kinda greenish water. kelp forests, lots of weird plants, not a lot of fish. there were wrasse, box cowfish, anemones, stars, a rockfish, couple crabs. mostly just plants floating back and forth in the current. i was praying for a sea dragon, please god let me see one so i don't ever have to get back in this water. please please please.
the first dive was 48 minutes and by the end i was shaking and my teeth were chattering and no sea dragon. sue kept asking if we saw the felled tree, that's where they live, or the backside of the reef 10m away, some are there. this is why we wanted a guide. grr.
we took off to the site for the second dive, the blowhole in blackman's bay. there was no way i could take my suit off between dives so i put a jacket on top and jumped up and down to try to get warm. didn't work. i ate half a box of tim-tam's hoping that might help (kawika introduced me to tim-tam's last week, possibly the greatest chocolate cookie ever created, they even sell them in the airport gift stores).
i was cold going in, i thought i was gonna die the moment i hit the water. i vaguely remember wondering if my nipples could cut through a 7mil suit. this dive was a bit shallower and i was too floaty so i swam back after 20 minutes for more weights, i was now carrying 38 pounds. that amazed me, 14 is the most i've ever used before.
more kelp, more cute cowfish, 48 minutes of no sea dragon. as we swam back to the boat sue yelled that we should try one more time a little further down, maybe go until we have about 40bar left. so we went back down on the other side of the reef, total dive time for 2nd dive of 63 minutes, no sea dragon. i was pretty sure my fingertips were going to break off.
i was told that we were only doing 2 dives, and although i was upset that there was no sea dragon i was pretty ok with getting dried off. the weather had gotten worse, the sun hadn't come out all day, wind and rain, all i could think about was hot showers and obscene amounts of food.
but sue felt that we should do a third dive. georgina gave the decision to me since i was the coldest (her drysuit was leaking so she wasn't too warm, but she dived in antarctica so this probably wasn't that bad for her). whatever. i came all this way, half frozen, i'll probably never be back, might as well try for another 20 minutes. sue's rationale was that the first site gets battered by storms, the second site had a bunch of spear divers a few days ago, and the third site doesn't usually get any traffic. and that's when georgina got pissed. imagine an older, shorter, english housewife getting pissed. it was very quiet. but i agreed, why go to the crappy sites first, especially when the more pristine site is only 15 minutes from the dock? we're both annoyed.
third site was boronia beach. sue was begging us to go for just a little while, even though one tank only has 100bar and georgina had to use her tank from the last dive. we decided to go for 20 minutes or until one of us had no air. definitely not diving by padi standards. not even close. i think sue felt bad because usually she's in the water with people and can find the sea dragon hangouts and maybe her crew called in sick, and this wasn't a great day of diving. i decided to leave my camera on the boat for the third dive since it wasn't doing anything but wearing down the battery.
she dropped us at the edge of a reef (ok go in here you can see the reef, swim with it on your left, if you go around that corner into the other bay that's ok i'll follow your bubbles). freezing freezing freezing i think i'm gonna die and OH MY GOD THERE'S A SEA DRAGON! no, 2!
possibly the weirdest animal i've ever seen in my life. it has a snout like a seahorse, a fat little body with teensy fluttery useless-looking fins and a long tail that's half fat and half really skinny. in total about 14 inches long, and every color in the crayon box. the sun had just come out (prophetic, i think), and every time he moved different parts of his body turned different colors in the light. 2 lumps on his head that looked like horns, and 2 long side fins that just dangled looking like kelp. there was also another set of tiny fluttery fins where you'd think his ears might be. the overall effect is like an elephant flying with a couple pairs of little tinker bell wings. totally ridiculous.
and of course i didn't have my camera. i signaled to georgina that i was going to the boat and i'd be right back. i sprinted. in a 7mil suit. by the time i got back i was so out of breath i had to sit on the surface trying to breathe. the suit was far too tight for a proper breath. but there's a sea dragon so i went down anyway.
one of them was still there so we spent the next 25 minutes watching him. he just swam back and forth between a couple big rocks and showed off for us, like he was on a sea dragon catwalk. and i totally forgot i was cold.
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| sea dragon! |
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