Date: 6 September 2013
Lately spectacular vehicular disasters seem to follow me around. Hoping for good conditions – there was no real reason why the visibility shouldn’t be good – we set out for a dive with Open Water and Advanced students. Unfortunately the bay was filthy – we looked for clean water at Roman Rock, and found only compass sea jellies. We went south to Shark Alley, where – in desperation – we dived. It was like being in boiling pea soup, only colder. One of my students hung onto the kelp to try and keep position in the water. We had to abort a compass swim because of the surge. It was impossible to keep a heading.
Meanwhile, on the boat, Kate was watching a large, camouflage-painted radio controlled aircraft circling the boat and the dive site. It crashed into the water just before we surfaced. Its owner was watching frantically from the shore. Brian leaped into the water and retrieved it, and we drove to the slipway at Miller’s Point with it balanced precariously on the pontoon.
It started to smoke as the batteries short circuited. I told Kate – who was holding it – that if it caught alight she should throw it overboard. There was a small fuel tank that could have caused a problem if the plane started burning! Fortunately we were able to return the plane to its owner. If you recognise the plane, please tell its owner to get in touch because he must have some amazing footage of the boat at Shark Alley on the camera that was mounted on the fuselage!
It turned out to be a good day for fishing (Miller’s Point was packed) but not for diving.
