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Dive Report: 26/01/98

The Balcony, Sth of Jibbon, Sydney.

CC - Air Diluent - 23m for 60min bottom time.

Diver - Scott

On Australia Day I dived from Max Western's 'Sea Tamer II' at a reef just south of Jibbon called 'The Balcony'. There were four other OC divers on the boat. We swam constantly for just about the whole dive. Air diluent breathed noticably a bit harder even though the depth was half that of the heliox dive. I noticed what I presumed to be CO2 or WOB build up after about 20mins of swimming so I had to slow down. Possibly because of the bodgy mouthpiece I have, the exhale valve goes 'pop!' when I breathe hard and stays open if you breathe in really softly. Mostly it pops back closed again though. I'm ditching it for a new whiz bang shut off mouthpiece with better valves and less dead space.

We explored the reef to the north west and found lots of swimthroughs. In one spot I found hundreds of white eared parmas sitting all over the rocks and they let me swim right over them without them swimming off. I also saw a groupa being cleaned by two small cling fish at a cleaning station which would have made a great photo if I had a camera and knew how to use one. They let me get very close without worrying about me.

The other divers ascended after about 45mins so I explored the reef in different directions away from the anchor. I felt great, just like a fish, with no time pressure or gas consumption to worry about I could have stayed down for hours. There was no noise with the breather either which made it very peacefull. Towards the end of the dive I found a mobile phone which looked like it had been underwater for a while. After 60mins I thought I should go up so the other divers wouldn't be waiting for too long for me.

This was a fun and relaxing dive. I also didn't have any 'steam' coming from the mouthpiece after this dive. Maybe there was some sort of leak on the previous dive to create all the steam or maybe the scrubber just didn't get as hot.

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