It stands for Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus – SCUBA. It is a ticket to another world – a world of nature with little or no human despoliation. A world where there is no gravity, just buoyancy. It is a slow and silent world full of weird and wonderful life. It is a privilege to be in – a privilege only available to the ordinary citizen in the past few decades.
Before then, even the most experienced traveller on the sea was just that – a traveller on the sea who could only wonder at what was beneath.
Canberra, Australia’s only inland capital – and a cold one at that – does not seem a likely base for a scuba-diving industry. Scuba is usually associated with warm tropical waters and summer holidays.
In fact, Canberra has at least five scuba schools and there are dozens more in easy reach on the South Coast. And the South Coast of NSW – Canberra’s coastal doorstep – has some exquisite diving on world standards. The sea grasses at Jervis Bay, the seals and grey nurse sharks at Montague Island and the weird bubble cave at Black Rock off Malua Bay rate among the best.
This is the time to begin. Mid to late autumn is the best time to scuba or to learn scuba in this part of the world. It is all to do with currents and the difference in temperature between the ocean and the air.
January is one of the worst months on the coast. In most places on the coast, January is the highest rainfall month. Also, the land temperature gets very hot during the day and the sea is still quite cold. The hot air on the land rises and strong winds come off the ocean to replace it. This makes for rougher seas. The sea stays cold, often till the end of January (or even mid-February as happened this year). Then the warm currents come down from Queensland, bringing warmer water to the South Coast until June. Typically water temperatures are between 19 and 22 degrees between February and May. Whereas in the height of summer, the water can be as low as 16 or 17 degrees. It might sound like just a few degrees – nothing on land, but a big difference in the water. At 17 degrees you feel cold on your face and cold, even in a 5mm wetsuit, after 40 minutes in the water. At 21 degrees you can stay in the water for hours with a 5mm wetsuit.
Another reason for scuba diving in March to May is that the currents from the north increase visibility. Cold currents from the south contain a lot of small-life nutrient which impairs visibility. Warm water is usually clearer. Exactly the opposite of fresh water.
It is not difficult to learn to scuba dive. You have to be over 14 and be able to swim six lengths of the pool. Everything else, you will be taught on the course. Children between 10 and 14 can learn to dive with extra supervision. People in their 60s and beyond take up the sport.
People’s motives vary. A lot of young males learn scuba with images of James Bond in Thunderball in mind – daring underwater exploits and the like. It is not that sort of sport. It is more a rambling, nature walk sort of sport. Hardly a sport at all.
Many lads start off thinking they are Bond in Thunderball but soon become to respect the marine environment and look in awe at the diversity and strangeness of sea life – which is right in your face when you dive. Most sea life ignores you and allows you to take a very close up view.
“But what about sharks?” I hear you ask. Sharks are the least of a scuba diver’s worry. The drive to the scuba entry point is far more risky. Sharks are wary for divers. They don’t want to attack this ugly, large thing which blows fearsome bubbles out of it mouth. The grey nurse sharks a Montague eye you warily from the distance or meander elegantly by. A huge hammerhead shark I saw in New Guinea once was scared of harmless little me and fled.
Stonefish, stingrays and blue-ringed octopuses pose some danger, but if you look and do not touch, there is no problem. The rewards are immense. Seals will play with you off Montague Island. Weird cuttlefish will look at you with a long face off Durras. Weedy sea dragons will camouflage themselves off Broulee. Schools of bream, whiting, salmon and tailor will teach you the bounty of the sea. Off the rock wall at Narooma or off the Tollgate Islands at Bateman’s Bay you can see elegant tiny shrimp, colourful nudibranches or watch a starfish turn itself slowly to its correct size. And night diving is yet another world.
You have to do a course in which you learn some interesting physiology and physics. The blood absorbs nitrogen. As you go down pressure increases, so the blood absorbs more nitrogen – just like lemonade absorbing more carbon dioxide under pressure. But unlike lemonade you don’t want to release the pressure (by ripping off the cap) quickly, because that causes bubbles to form. If divers come up to quickly, the bubbles in the blood get stuck in the joints hindering movement – hence the bends. Worse, the bubbles get stuck in the brain or lungs. So you are taught how to control the gear so you go down and come up safely.
You wear a buoyancy vest. You allow air from the tank to expand into it if you want more buoyancy and you release air from it if you want to sink.
There is a fair amount of farnarkling – getting equipment right, travelling to the wharf for a boat dive and going out on the boat or travelling to the spot where you can go from the shore. And on return all the gear has to be washed free of salt water. But it is all worth it for the blissful 50 minutes or so underwater.
Earlier this month I went back to school. I joined Steve Harding from the Scuba Store in Braddon teaching beginners from Lyneham High School in the safety of the Olympic Pool – the very place where I learned to dive 18 years ago.
Courses vary, but they all teach theory, do some pool dives and go to the coast for some dives from the shore and a boat. Harding takes his classes to Bawley Point.
Canberra has about 800 to 1000 active divers. John Wilson runs the only tank testing operation in Canberra out of the Scuba Store. He tests about 800 tanks a year, including mine. Some divers – those who dive infrequently or mostly overseas — do not own their own tanks. Tanks are heavy, have to be tested every year and if you have to go back to the shop for a fill anyway, why bother owning your own if you are not going to use it much.
Overall, the gear is expensive, though you can get second-hand stuff at reasonably prices. Once owned, diving can be as cheap as a $7 airfill.
And the best way to answer the question, what’s down there, is to go and see for yourself.