Memorial for Dave Wheatley

25/11/1969 to 3/10/1997

On the long weekend I went on a road trip down to Merimbula with a couple of long time friends for a dive to commemorate the passing of our friend Dave 10 years ago.

I’ve known Steve and Rob, who I drove down with, and Dave since primary school and earlier. That was around 25 to 30 years ago. With us living in different parts of the country (and world at times), it’s been well over 10 years since the three of us have been on a road trip together that hasn’t involved wives or girlfriends, so that was a momentous occasion on its own.

After a leisurely 7 hour drive from Sydney to Merimbula on Saturday morning we met up with some of Dave’s family and other friends that were down there for the weekend, and enjoyed a relaxing afternoon and evening before an early start on Sunday.

Sunday morning saw us loading up the boats for the short trip out to the wreck of the Tasman Hauler off the coast of Eden, which plays host to a memorial in Dave’s honour (see below) and is the site at which his ashes were scattered all those years ago.

The Tasman Hauler is a tug that was scuttled in 1988, is still more or less intact and in good condition. The top of the mast is at a depth of 14 metres, the bridge at around 20 metres, it lies in about 30 metres of water at the base and is over 40 metres in length.

Conditions weren’t too bad, although it was a little murky down there. For the first part of the dive everyone gathered around Dave’s memorial in remembrance of our friend. As well as many of Dave’s friends, his brother Mark and sister Meredith were on the dive.

Dave was instrumental in my taking up diving in the first place, and over the years we shared many good times, both under the water and on the surface, and it was a terrible loss for him to pass away at just 27 years of age.

Mark then took Rob and myself on a tour of the wreck, starting with the prop. Steve doesn’t dive, and stayed up on the boat with Dave’s Mum. The prop is intact and enclosed in a shroud. I was able to stand upright on the bottom of the shroud and couldn’t touch the top with my hands. After swimming through the prop we ascended a little and swam through the engine room. The rest of the dive involved a look around the bridge and the bow before heading back to the plaque and up the mooring line. All up the dive was around 31 minutes, maximum depth 29 metres and a water temperature of 13 degrees C (a bit chilly!).

Once everyone was rounded up back on the boat it was time for the second purpose of the trip. Dave’s Dad Bill recently passed away, and his ashes were also being scattered at the site. Sadly Mark had the task of doing for his father what he did for his brother 10 years ago. After that the boats were on their way back to Eden to complete a very moving morning at sea.

We then had the rest of the day to relax, eat and drink at various locations throughout Merimbula.

Monday was a full day of travel. We headed off at 8am and got back to Sydney around 3pm. After a break I then had the rest of the trip to complete solo, making it back to Port around 9pm. So the journey home incorporated breakfast, lunch and dinner, around 13 hours and over 800km. There was a bit of traffic along the way, but nothing too severe.

It was a memorable weekend and I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. I did take my running gear, but didn’t get the chance to use it. I can run any time!

Taken at Merimbula in June 1996. Dave on the far left, Steve and Rob are there, and I even had some hair back then ;)

This is a video capture from the original video taken 10 years ago so it’s a little hard to read:

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick is over.

- John Masefield.

Some more diving pics

An eel poking it's head out.

A couple more sharks cruising the gutter.

Clown Fish.

A starfish.
Slothy Boy checking out the shark.

A Leafy Scorpion fish - very easy to miss this one.

A dive wouldn't be complete without a friendly blue groper hanging around.

Double Boat Dive at Fish Rock (South West Rocks, NSW)

After 9 months and more than 100 posts it’s finally happened…I have a couple of dives to post about, so you know it’s not gonna be a brief post!! Given that my financial and time priorities lie elsewhere for the time being, it’ll probably be as long again before the next dive even though I’m psyched up for some more!

Jodie’s brother, Ben (aka Slothy Boy) and I were booked in with South West Rocks Dive Centre for 7am Saturday morning. After the usual formalities (fairly straightforward as I have all my own gear beside tanks) the boat was loaded up and we were off for the 25 minute trip to Fish Rock. Surface conditions were good, with very little swell and clear skies. There was a bit of a breeze making the surface of the water a bit choppy, but we moored on the sheltered side of the rock.

Dive 1 was to be all the way through Fish Rock Cave, which is a cave that runs over 100 metres through the middle of Fish Rock. The cave profile is here.

After a briefing from the dive master I promptly geared up, did a giant stride off the back of the boat and floated around waiting for most of the 6 others to get their act together. The water was quite cool at first, although my dive computer registered 19 degrees C which isn’t too bad really and with a 2 piece dive suit you warm up soon enough.

Once everyone was ready we descended to 23 metres where the “deep entrance” of the cave lies and after a quick torch check we started filing into the cave. It’s quite narrow to start off with, before widening once you rise up one of the chimneys to the upper section of the cave.

Being in a group doesn’t give much opportunity to do your own exploration of the cave, but I did take the opportunity to shine the torch around and it’s pretty impressive looking around and seeing the fissures extending above you. For me, the most amazing part was approaching the shallow entrance when the light starts penetrating through, throwing up the spectacular silhouette of fish teeming through the shallow entrance to the cave, which is around 12 metres deep.

The shallow entrance to the cave holds an incredible amount of life. I still had about 150 bar of air by the time we made it there, and we hung around for a while. There were up to a dozen grey nurse sharks of varying sizes slowly cruising along the gutter and into the cave. A couple of huge bull rays and wobbegong sharks were relaxing on the bottom, as well as a couple of moray eels poking their heads out of their lairs.

After a while we made our way back around the outside of the rock to the mooring line and ascended to the surface with a standard safety stop at 5 metres for 3 minutes.


We relaxed on the boat for a surface interval of about an hour before it was time to get the second dive underway.


Dive 2 was to be a more relaxed dive back around the outside of the rock to the cave’s shallow entrance. Whilst it was a great experience to go through the cave on the first dive, I really enjoyed the second one because there was more opportunity to do our own thing and I found the most enjoyable section to be in and around the shallow cave entrance. When the rest of the group went elsewhere Slothy Boy and myself ventured back into the cave to take some more photos, do some exploration and hang around the side of the gutter while the sharks cruised past. The critically endangered Grey Nurse Sharks are beautiful, amazing creatures to watch as well as being extremely placid and virtually harmless to humans. Even so, it’s certainly awe inspiring when you’re sitting there and a shark larger than yourself is eyeing you off as it’s heading towards you before gliding past just half a metre away!

Aside from the sharks there’s quite an amazing diversity of marine life in the area. We saw angel fish, a couple of rare leafy scorpion fish, quite a few moray eels, plenty of friendly blue gropers, some clown fish, heaps of snapper, lobster, bull rays, lionfish, bullseyes, starfish, wobbegong sharks plus just far too many other miscellaneous fish to name including many large schools all around.

I hadn’t dived Fish Rock before but had heard so much about it, so I’m glad to have finally taken the opportunity to dive there. It definitely lived up to the hype as far as I’m concerned and is right up there with the best dives I’ve ever done. I’m looking forward to getting back out there again in the future. Thanks to Slothy Boy for organising it and bringing along the camera with underwater housing. Between the 2 of us we took heaps of photos, of which most were pretty dodgy but there were still a few good shots. There are a couple below and I’ll follow up with some more once I sort them out a bit.

The stats from my dive computer were:

Dive 1
Max Depth: 23 metres
Average Temp: 19 Deg C
Bottom time: 44 min

Surface Interval: 1hr 5 min

Dive 2
Max Depth: 19 metres
Average Temp: 19 Deg C
Bottom time: 55min

We had about 10-15 metres visibility and there was just a minimal amount of both surge and current. I travelled through quite a few thermoclines (rapid change of temperature) and it’s always nice going from cold to warm but terrible the other way. You can see them coming up because the water shimmers in the same way that you see the heat rising up off a hot road. The most severe one was actually in the cave, and the warm change actually made my eyes water!

Nitrogen absorption remained in the “green zone” throughout both dives according to the computer, so they were both fairly conservative profiles.



I'm at the shallow entrance here and in case you missed it I'm pointing out the Grey Nurse in the background

A morey eel poking his head out to see what's going on

Grey Nurse with entourage

The view from inside the shallow entrance to the cave. It was more impressive before the fish made room for the divers!

A Lionfish with it's venomous spines