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"All the gang would like to wish Linda well in her new shop, St. Andrew's Florist. If hard work has anything to do with it - it will be "blooming" successful. Well done Linda, but don't give up diving altogether?" Only joking see you late Saturdays and Sundays.

Happy Birthday Glenys on the 29th April. Shhhh we won't tell how old she will be, but we will celebrate with you Saturday night.
Love from "The Gang".

	A very belated apology for not putting these images up sooner when we congratulated Grant and Paula on achieving your SSI Instructor Certifications instead of the "Mug Shots" published below. Pictured left are the proud recipients with their certificates. Pictured below are "The Gang" who assembled to celebrate this fine achievement.

Hello everybody,
I'm back !!! (sorry)
I haven't been doing much reporting lately as Linda & I are going through another course (torture programme) but we did get a couple of dives in last weekend.
Our dive on Saturday morning was at Foggy Cave.

Brilliant dive! We dropped in off the boat into milky water with about 5 metres vis. Following the anchor line down, when we reached 10 metres depth, the milkyness cleared to crystal blue water all the way to the bottom 40 metres below with at least 30 metres vis. After a slow swim to the ledge overlooking the cave, we stopped at the drop-off to see 7 beautiful Grey Nurse sharks leisurely swimming around below us.
Instead of just dropping straight down onto the sand, we stayed on the ledge until we were sure that all the sharks had seen us. Only then did we drop off the ledge to join the sharks.

Because they all knew that divers were around, when we dropped down, they weren't spooked by our presence and just went about their business, swimming over & around us and just doing what they do naturally, instead of being spooked by divers and swimming off.

Sunday's dive was also to Foggy Cave (just had to do it again).
The vis had dropped a little to about 20 meters. Water temp was 24c with a slight southerly current.

Back to the ledge, sit there for a minute to allow the sharks to accustom to our presence, then drop to the sand in the middle of 8 Grey Nurse (2 babies - probably last years birthings & 6 adults) one of which was obviously the dominant male.
He swam out of the cave towards me, turned slightly to my right as he passed and bared all of his teeth, probably as a show of dominance. Brilliant, the only problem is Linda had the camera as she was getting photos of an adult female with a large hook & trace line attached. She must have put up a good fight with the fisherman as her head is permenantly twisted to the right. She probably has neck muscle/tendon damage.

Take a look at our short video, but for the real thing, have a dive with us at Terrigal Dive Centre.
Anyway, on that note, I must say goodbye till my next report.

Video of Foggy Cave Scuba Dive.

Stay tuned - stay safe
Clark Bent

We had a great time! We were visiting Sydney for the holidays from the US and wanted a day of diving. A quick internet search turned up Terrigal Dive Centre.

My boys (18 and 20) and I were so glad to find such a great dive shop and an easy to access spot to dive. Les and Fran took great care of us. Our first dive was a boat dive

. The dive master and the more experienced divers on the boat were very helpful to the less experienced. They treated us like family. A very positive experience on rough conditions.

I look forward to diving here again on our next visit down under and hope to be able to dive the HMAS Adelaide out of the Terrigal Dive Centre.

Thanks to Les and Fran from,
Jim, Tim and Sam.

Les and Fran would like to congratulate Grant and Paula Bradley on passing their Dive Instructor's Exam's and we welcome them into our fold. Now their problems are only just starting - we are only joking.

Maritime put out the marker buoy at the site where the ex HMAS Adelaide
is going to be sunk. It is a further milestone in the history of obtaining the
wreck and it is suddenly getting quite exciting.

P.S. Les could not resist being the first in the queue.

The Open Water Dive Course divers all passed with flying colours and were a real pleasure to have and Les and I are looking forward to them visiting us again shortly. Thanks also for the birthday wishes.

Fran

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FRAN!

Thanks again for a great week. We all thoroughly enjoyed the course and learned a lot.

Here is a copy of the photo Linda took yesterday of our happy group. We hope to see you soon for our follow up dive.

Have a lovely day,

from Rowena

Hi Les & Fran, We arrived back from our trip to Santo last Friday. The diving over there was great as usual - 15 days, 14 dives on the President Coolidge and 1 on an old Dauntless bomber wreck. The air temp was about 30c with 80-85% humidity and the water was a constant 28c at all depths. This is the life. If this is the rainy season, bring it on.  We had 2 days when it drizzled slightly for about 30 minutes and 1 downpour overnight. The fish life on the Coolidge all come in giant size - 1 metre long snapper, 1.5 metre tuna, 2 metre long barracuda, Nessie the moray eel (probably 3 metres) and Linda spotted some other big fish cruising off in the channel that looked to be about 2-2.5 metres long. Linda, being a florist, decided she would take a flower down to The Lady and I took a photo of the occasion. This is probably the 1st time that The Lady has received a flower in 68 years. The bomber wreck was also a great dive. Although it is broken up, you can see that the plane crashed under power as the propellers are bent back. The cockpit is still visible but too small to enter with scuba gear and the remainder of the plane is easily recognisable. During our offgassing days, we lazed around, ate, drank, ate, drank, I had a game of Island Golf at Santo Golf Club - yes, there is a golf club there (see attached photo. All in all, we had a great time and are glad to be back to see our friends at the shop. P.S. Can you please organise for Terrigal waters to be heated to 28c for us - pleeeeeeeze ? See you all soon, Nigel & Linda.

Manhatten Beach

Hi Fran & Les Thanks for the greetings you sent through Tristan. He just arrived back in Sydney following the funeral and Christmas. We loved the photo on your website of the new ramp in use for the first time. Looking forward to walking on it fully geared up myself in early Feb! For now have attached a couple of snap shots that are mostly self explanatory. Manhattan Beach is near the airport in LA where we spent half a day and one night when United cancelled our flight to the east coast . Unfortunately, that was the last time I've been able to wear the dive shop T-shirt. Snow is the order of the season in Connecticut, along with temps in the sub zero range. We got 5 inches today, with more expected over the next few days. Give our regards to all. Gary & Dianne

No Diving Here

Hi there Gary and Diane,
Just a note to let you know that all your friends at Terrigal are thinking of you at this time. Thank you for the photo's the No Diving Here one looks like a Christmas Card and I thought it would be nice to share them.

Merry Christmas everybody. Not many sleeps now till Christmas & not many dives left for the year. Also, I forgot to mention last week that the new ramp & path from the shop is NOW OPEN. It is so easy to get down to the beach & boat. No steps at all, just an easy walk along a gentle slope.

This week we dived at Foggy Cave & Skillion Cave on Saturday 19th. Foggy Cave is at 40 metres and the visability there was at least 25 metres (some reckon about 30). Heaps to see as usual - stripeys, old wives, yellowtail, grouper, baby cuttle fish and Captain Les. He is a resin garden gnome that has been moored to a rock just before the ledge down to the cave. When we were on our safety stop, what did we see, Byron having a paddle around the boat (without a wetsuit on), but with his cossies of course. Just goes to prove that the water has warmed up.

The 2nd dive was at Skillion Cave and what a dive it was. The bottom here is around 21 metres. Nice clear water again and fish galore. The large grouper greeted us first for a feed of urchin. The 1st urchin I touched for the day & the nasty thing spikes me in the back of the hand with six of his spines. How do I know there were six, I could clearly see the black ends under my skin (ouch) !! Entering the cave, all we could see were fish, nannygai, stripeys, yellowtail & numerous others. Again the grouper wanted a feed - ( here, pick the spines out of the back of my hand first & I'll consider it )

We couldn't find the resident wobby this time but the usual moray eels where there. Rising up towards the cave roof and fighting our way through the fish, there is a side exit through the rock. Just on the right hand side of this exit is an overhang and a rather large cuttlefish was hovering in a low surge trying to get some sleep. During our safety stop, we explored the life on one of the many vertical walls and there is a myriad of life all along here. Too much to mention. But, one of the giant bull rays (2 1/2 metres across) swam past us at a leisurely pace, probably going for a feed of mussels on one of the ledges.

Sundays' diving was at Two White Houses & Fifeshire Reef. Again, excellent dives. But I've rattled on enough. Its nearly Christmas, Linda & I are packing to leave for Vanuatu on Thursday - sorry, someone has to go (again) & I have alchohol waiting for me.

Click on the link below to see Saturdays' video. Again, have a Merry Christmas & a safe & happy New Year to all. Safe diving & we'll be back in about 3 weeks.

Click here to see our Scuba Dive of Foggy Cave and Skillion Cave

From your merry mild mannered reporter,
Clark Bent and Linda.

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