Lars Hemel: Logbook

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Exploring the Lady Jules when instructors were certifying other people

A very nice dive. The coral and marine life is completely different from that of the Great Barrier Reef. We saw lots of clownfish, wired coral in all colors imaginable, anemones especially green and blue and load of staghorn coral.

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Tuart Wreck by boat from Port Moresby

My time as a dive master runs out in two weeks and I still had to do more than 10 dives. Some of the dives described you can find below.

Charlie and I illegally went out on a night dive and we accidentally bumped into the paying group so that we had to go back early. One dive was a Discover Scuba Diving dive with three students who didn't have any training at all. Quite funny actually. Each of the dive masters was buddying with one of the student and our job was to keep them strait and buoyant, preventing them to go up and down or rocketing to the surface. I played the rescue victim laying on the bottom of the ocean and hoping that the students would find me. Once I had equalizing problems with sinuses that wouldn't pop. Elenor, me and Armen went to dive the Moltke wreck again, once when I was leading the Canyons dive I thought I could swim over a few rocks but low tide prevented this. I met David again, we did our Open Water course together in Harvey Bay, and we made a very long dive at the Coral Gardens and Canyons in Alma Bay. Once I forgot that I was diving with a dive flag and when passing a swimmthrough I found out about that mistake and had to return. Other sights on Magnetic Island include Spotfish Rock, Bremner Point, Geoffrey Bay, a peak performance buoyancy dive, a low visibility dive on the Moltke, terrible navigation dive and once I lost the wreck. Marine life included huge angelfish and turtles.

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Lillian Patch harbor Port Moresby

This time I was the COTS dive leader and I had to explain and show how and where to find the Crown of Thorn starfish. My dive buddy Alan was expecting me to point them out to him, but as ever, I couldn't find them easily. We found two on our first dive and seven on the second; all very large examples.

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My Last Dive Master dives

My time as a dive master runs out in two weeks and I still had to do more than 10 dives. Some of the dives described you can find below.

Charlie and I illegally went out on a night dive and we accidentally bumped into the paying group so that we had to go back early. One dive was a Discover Scuba Diving dive with three students who didn't have any training at all. Quite funny actually. Each of the dive masters was buddying with one of the student and our job was to keep them strait and buoyant, preventing them to go up and down or rocketing to the surface. I played the rescue victim laying on the bottom of the ocean and hoping that the students would find me. Once I had equalizing problems with sinuses that wouldn't pop. Elenor, me and Armen went to dive the Moltke wreck again, once when I was leading the Canyons dive I thought I could swim over a few rocks but low tide prevented this. I met David again, we did our Open Water course together in Harvey Bay, and we made a very long dive at the Coral Gardens and Canyons in Alma Bay. Once I forgot that I was diving with a dive flag and when passing a swimmthrough I found out about that mistake and had to return. Other sights on Magnetic Island include Spotfish Rock, Bremner Point, Geoffrey Bay, a peak performance buoyancy dive, a low visibility dive on the Moltke, terrible navigation dive and once I lost the wreck. Marine life included huge angelfish and turtles.

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Last Kelso Reef leading COTS dive

This time I was the COTS dive leader and I had to explain and show how and where to find the Crown of Thorn starfish. My dive buddy Alan was expecting me to point them out to him, but as ever, I couldn't find them easily. We found two on our first dive and seven on the second; all very large examples.

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Last Yongala Wreck Dives

This was my first really free dive on the Yongala wreck. I did have to help with cleaning gear, setting up weight belts, serving some snacks, doing some paperwork on safety sausages and other small activities on the boat, but the dive was completely without any task at the back of the group.

The dive was wonderful. A lot of current on the way back and I completely missed the name Yongala and the toilet. I dove with Sarah and Elenor.

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Plenty of beautiful dives around Magnetic Island

I did a lot of dives around Magnetic Island, mainly in and near Alma Bay. I dove with instructors, helping in certifying beginning divers, I mapped Fish Cove with Michael, we took a lot of fun dives and we were taking divers out to one of Alma Bays' beautiful dive sites.

My orientation problems above water turned out to be even worse under water as I wasn't sure whether I could locate the Molke Wreck. We dove with TJ and Miyuki, me and Sarah experienced a diver with a bleeding nose because he went up and down too often, one time I was sent back to shore with a diver who had equalizing problems, an underwater navigation dive appeared to be difficult as none of the students made it correctly back to the flag and we spotted clamps in Alma Bay.

One terrible experience was a dive with Marie. She was leading the dive to Moltke Wreck and she wanted to be in the water before the ferry arrived but the ferry was already very nearby and it was getting dangerous to get into the water. She jumped in with the paying divers; she broke her mask strip and told me and Matt very bossy to get a new one from out of the car. Matt got it, but both of us decided to wait until the ferry was gone again.

One of my night dives in Alma Bay was the best I have ever done. We saw loads of crabs, small fishes, awakening parrotfish, hundreds of worms attracted to the flash lights. The end when we walked out of the water was even more spectacular. Hundreds of flying fish were flying next to us, it was full moon with lots of bright stars and when we walked back to the dive shop we saw wallabies and opossum.

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Two more dives on the Yongala Wreck

Great dive at the Yongala wreck again. The weather was rough and I got seasick on the boat, so I was glad to be in the water. We spotted an eagle ray, big turtles and the familiar groper family who were not in an attacking mode today.

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Kelso Reef Crown of Thorn Starfish extermination dive

At my first COTS dive I didn't caught any. I did see a few beautiful clams, anemone fish and parrot fish. Loads of blue sea stars and moray eels. The second dive I removed two crown of thorn starfish from the reef. A huge Maori Wrasse was also following us during this dive.

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Dives for Dive Master course

During this time I dove a few pretty dives near the dive shop where I did my divemaster course in Alma Bay, Magnetic Island. I dove the Molthe Wreck and the Canyons. One of my dives was my first as a open water students dive leader.

And another one was while helping an instructor certifying their Open Water students. One of the open water students hadn't properly turned on the air velves and she noticed underwater that it was quite hard to breathe. So I helped her by opening up the velves completely.

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First COTS dive to remove Crown of Thorn Starfish

The Kelso Reef is a very popular and crowded reef with many student, novice and professional divers. We were diving with a tank of acid on our back to find Crown of Thorn Starfish who are eating the coral reefs.

We had to put the acid in each of its legs (starfish) with a kind of gun we were wearing underwater. They were pretty difficult to find and in two dives with a great lunch in between Michael and I only found 3 crown of thorn starfish.

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DiveMaster Course magnetic Island part 1

Durin my dive master course which was located in Alma Bay, Magnetic Island we made several dives there. We visited dive sites such as the Molthe wreck, the Canyons, Coral Gardens and Geoffrey Bay. We often visited our mapping site Fish Cove.

Other things we did was playing unconsious victim for rescue students both above as beneath the surface, we filled air tanks, took divers out for a nice dive, helped instructors with testing the skills of students.

I was realy surprised to see the problems students could have in excersices as cleaning their mask, changing gear, replacing weightbelts and BCD but also with equalizing.

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Fish Cove Mapping Dive Site

One of the exercises as a dive master is to map a particularly spot of the underwater world. Michael and I went out on a dive in Alma Bay, Fish Cove to find a detailed spot which is great for making an underwater map. We found two large rocks with a lot of variation in depth and decided this is the spot where we will be diving a lot the coming two months.

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Start Dive Master Magnetic Island

When I decided to do my divemaster course one month ago, I knew Magnetic Island was the place. The diveshop I did my advanced open water course was great.

Our first dive was following a dive master in training, one of the things I am going to learn as well; taking divers out on a dive. There were two paying open water divers, the divemaster and me at the back. A great relaxed dive.

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Yongala Wreck Specialty PADI Advanced Open Water course

My last specialty on my PADI Advanced Open Water course was a wreck dive, luckily enough also on the Yongala Wreck.

It was a brilliant dive. We saw the Yongala toilet, the name Yongala on the side of teh wreck and lots of other things. Realy spectacular and making it my best dive so far. Everything went fine, two safety stops, no equipment problems; actually a real relaxed dive.