We always see great underwater photos with clear blue backgrounds and that’s like a dream for any diver or underwater enthusiast. Those are tropical waters. As Sri Lankans we are blessed with such beautiful warm waters around our island. Anyway, ocean gets different character in different regions. Once you pass the tropical belt, go further away from equator, you find temperate zone. Here I am documenting experience of my underwater excursions in temperate waters. It’s the journey of green waters than blue waters!
I dived in Great Barrier Reef for the first time in 2012 which was amazing. The experience itself was pretty much the same as diving in Sri Lanka since it offers tropical waters. Anyway, I was based in Sydney. So I thought of diving around the temperate waters around New South Whales because I cant afford to fly to Queensland frequently. This is where the real adventure started.
Once I learnt the conditions, I knew this is a different game. Need to wear thick wetsuit along with boots, hoodies and what not to stay warm in 19 – 22 degrees water. Water of Tasman sea is heavily influenced by sea currents of Antarctic ocean currents. In summer, land temperature may be reaching forties, yet sea water remains cold.
Plunging into cold water
My first dive was a disaster! I felt like I am diving in a green jelly: nor corals and much fishes. I thought, I would rather dive in Beira lake in central Colombo! One of the buddies I dived with was a tourist from Egypt called Ali. As soon as he surfaced, he asked Why the hell people dive here at all? I am not surprised since Red Sea, one of the most colorful seas, is in his doorstep. Anyway, my impression too wasn’t much different.
By the time goes, I read more, started to realize and appreciate the differences. When hiking, we never compare Singharaja Rain forest with Wilpattu. Though you don’t see tropical fish, you would find some other great fauna like Sharks, Seahorses, Rays, different kinds of fishes and slugs. Though you don’t see coral reefs, you find kelp forest which is another different experience. I started to like this underwater greenery.
Lack of fauna is not the biggest complain I had here, but the challenging conditions. Visibility was so poor and sea currents are a norm. When it comes together, each dive in temperate zone was throwing many more challenges at me. In fact, I felt great after each successful dive. I simply decided to obey the rules wisely. When Australians do two dives, I was satisfied with one because that seemed more than enough for me in terms of exhaustion. By the time goes by, Guys in Manly dive station knew me very well due to my significance; I was the only dark-skinned diver, I was skinny, and I was on my own. I had to catch the early morning ferry to get there.
I can remember one experience explained by Tony Buxton, a pioneer diver lived in Sri Lanka, in his book Ecstasy of the Deep. Once he joined a team of adventurers in Sydney and started to sail around the world. As soon as they started sailing, they were hit by a gale that put Tony in to great panic. So, he was so concerned and started talking to others about the situation. Other Australian mates had told him that these are normal conditions, gales and hurricanes are yet to come. So this was the same experience I had in diving.
One of the favorite sites I dived was the Shelly beach (belongs to Cabbage tree bay aquatic reserve) in north of Sydney. It was close to famous Manly suburb. Usually, we walked to the shore and dived from there. One thing I enjoyed here was a friendly grouper named Harry. I always wanted to go and see it season by season. This fish usually preferred to swim along with me for a while.
I continued diving in summer and autumn though I was always adhering to my limitations as a skinny Sri Lankan boy, not as a giant AUSI bloke.
Sharks at Nelsons Bay
One of the remarkable dives I did was in Nelsons Bay, which is more than 200 km drive from my home. I had to leave around 3 am to reach there and meet the buddies. Anyway, that’s where I saw many sharks in one place. I spotted around 10 Grey Nurse sharks in same dive.
I was watchfully resting in a small canal shaped naturally made set of boulders to photograph the passing sharks. Dive master was ahead of me. Dive master suddenly turned at me and started to stare at me seriously. I was puzzled and thinking what’s wrong with me. Then I realized he is not merely looking at me, but his eyes were focused on something behind. My instincts said not to turn around and Dive master signaled the same. In a fraction of second, about 2-meter-long shark quickly passed few inches away from my face. As I learned later, there had been a shark resting in the other end of the channel. One young diver had seen it there and started to swim away as fast as he could, disturbing the creature. Shark had no other way to escape but to come towards my end. On land or water, same theory applies; We should not make animals excited by our behavior. It’s their territory.
Once I came to the surface, dive master was laughing and told me..hey buddy you collected something to tell your grand kids.. didn’t you! Anyway, it was not that adventurous. I knew Grey Nurse sharks do not have a reputation of being aggressive. Still they are wild creatures; sharks. Mostly panicked ones.
Nelsons bay is a place where warm water meets cold water. Unfortunately, the water of Nelsons bay wasn’t good that day. Murky water doesn’t help photographers much. Though we saw many sharks, none of the images came out to be in the level of satisfactory.
As we were finishing the dive, I experienced the so-called Washing Machine effect of the currents for real for the first time. This is nothing but water was taking us in circles in a great force, just like you are in a washing machine. I was staying calm. My biggest worry was I could clash in to another diver resulting injury.
In search of Seahorses
In 2015 summer, I had a self-assignment to shoot a seahorse. In fact, I dived in few places, but my last dive planned to do in, more promising, Chowder bay. That day I was lucky to dive with a buddy who was very supportive and knew what my target was. This ended up being the pay off day! At last we found amazingly tiny seahorse. I was equipped with my macro lens and managed to click about 20 shots before I was forced to surface since air level had gone beyond 50 bars. One of these images are still one of my best photographs. I see this Seahorse everyday since this became my choice of wallpaper in my laptop.
In 2nd July 2019, a Shark attack was reported in Shelly beach, Manly where I was diving frequently. I read this while in in Sri Lanka. To my surprise, I learnt culprit was an "innocent” Gray Nurse Shark! This was an eye opener – any harmless looking creature can become aggressive in some point.
Other side of Indian Ocean
In late 2019, I arrived in Perth, WA. As usual, my hand luggage was nothing but underwater camera equipment. Once I got familiar with my official assignments, I started to learn more about diving.
Before I plunge into the WA dive sites, I had the opportunity of diving into the biggest man-made tank in AQWA aquarium in Perth. Though I had already dived in shark infested waters of NSW and QLD, this gave me the opportunity to have a decent closer look at few different shark species. Since I first went through basic diver training, long ago, in a swimming pool at Hikkaduwa, this is the first time I dived into a man-made tank. It was an interesting one.
One of the easily accessible dive sites I came across was Rottnest Island. Honestly speaking I expected much warmer and clam waters in this area, since photographs taken from surface showed amazingly great - peacock blue waters. Anyway, underwater currents were always a fact to consider. Not like in NSW, great thing in WA is it offers a subtropical fish. WA located in much warmer region of temperate zone resulting both corals as well as kelp forest, which is a rare combination. WA also offers you to see Indian Ocean in a different perspective.
Since all my dive gear was in Sri Lanka, this time I had to rent things from a diving company. Since I am a small-made guy (at least compared to Australians!), I always ended up wearing a loose wetsuit that exposed my body to cold waters. Once I had to postpone my second dive because I thought I would get hypothermia. By that time, I had a bitter experience with hypothermia, and I knew what it can do to an average human body. Overall, I wasn’t very happy with the poor equipment supplied by my diving operator. Anyway, I really liked the dive instructor, called Ian, who lead our team. He is friendly, talkative and knowledgeable person. He is a videographer and a photographer. He took photos of his team underwater and I also ended up being an “actor” in some of his underwater videos published in Aquatic Australia page.
“Sharks” is a big subject in Western Australia. Threat was always there for spear-fishermen, surfers, ocean swimmers and for divers. I always believed, divers are the last in the list. Since divers stay underwater, sharks see the real size, much bigger thing once diving gear is attached, that makes divers not-an-easy prays. (Which proved to be wrong soon, when it comes to Great white sharks!) Ian had an electronic device to produce an electric field to distract the sharks if a life-threatening encounter occur. Anyway, we didn’t get a chance to check how effective that was. As an amateur photographer I was searching for sharks.
Rottnest island is a very beautiful island to explore on land as well. One of my colleagues, Neil once offered me to join their boat tour to the island and explore it on bicycles. It was a great experience. Neils’ family and his extended family members were planning their 2019 Xmas holiday in the island. Skipper of the boat was Neils brother-in-law, Dru, who was a very nice gentleman. Though I didn’t get to dive that day, managed to swim in many bays around the island. Anyway, Neil informed someone had seen two Bull sharks near Geordie bay, the same day.
Tragic death of a diver
2020 started with a sad news. A diver was killed by a Great White Shark near Esperance, WA. Just like Nelsons bay in NSW, Esperance is also a place where warm water meets cold water resulting an abundance of sharks and different other fauna. While I am writing this, victims’ wife, who saw the horror of fatal shark attack is in hospital due to the shock and police is still unable to recover the body. This incident made me think, how badly I under estimated the threat of Sharks in WA. Biggest mistake I did was I measured it in terms of the threat level in NSW or QLD. I was disappointed about my maturity.
Temperate waters… mystery, beauty and a challenge
I don’t think, I could really understand the temperate waters within my limited dives but managed to grasp some decent experience in cold waters. To be honest, there were few dives I finished thinking I am not going to dive in this shit again! Yet, I plunged into the same water next summer. In a way, I am pretty proud of my grit. After all, I know water is not always blue, but can be green too!
