Diving Australia

Steve

Sydney has really good shore diving but the wrecks are mostly gutted, barren and devoid of life. I moved from Sydney to Perth a few years ago and the diving is a clear step up. Still mostly scuttled wrecks but they are full of life.

Granted Perth is remote. I can't say it bothers me a bit though. Everything I like is here anyway. Great diving, easy to get out and about, brilliant weather and some of the world's best wine regions just a quick drive away. Oh, and if you can't get a well paid job here you are.........'special'

Have fun choosing.

P.S. Melbourne is sort of like a bigger Adelaide. The main difference being people from Melbourne think it is exciting. Poor things

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Andy Del

And none of you buggers think to warn our colleague about Drop Bears? Slack. Very slack.

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Downtime

All,

Well the only way to tell the best place is to make a statistical analysis on the amount of times each location is mentioned. Obviously the location that has the highest statistical frequency of being mentioned in these posts must be the best.

I have taken the liberty to do that very analysis to help the decision making process and here are the results:

Melbourne - 12 (Including 1 mention of Port Phillip Bay)
Sydney - 7
Queensland - 2
Brisbane - 2
Perth - 2 (Both in the same post... poor Perth delusionists!)
WA - 1
Adelaide - 1
Torquay - 1

There was also a mention of a town called Geelong. This of course is a mythical town that Aussies use to scare their children when they won't go to bed on time, or they misbehave! (E.g. "If you kids don't be quiet I'll move us all to Geelong!!!").

So as you can see, Melbourne wins hands down. By sheer numbers the voters have spoken. Can't wait for you to come down and dive all our wrecks (600 still yet to be discovered in Bass Strait so they say), walls, reefs, and now with our very own Dutch Dredge, silt.

Cheers,
Michael "The Melbournian"

streamway_explorer

You forgot to tell him there is no inspo friendly dive shop down in Victoria but there is in NSW and QLD . For Parts etc.

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Michael Collins

www.trimixdivers.com

Lancer4545

Yeah...Like he forgot to tell him about the Great White Sharks too

Lance

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Grahjam

Cheers for all the replies, been away over the weekend camping in the Langdales (only -5 oc overnight) so could n't reply earlier.

So Sydney and Melbourne get most mentions, or is this just the luck of the draw??? So next question is, wheres the best place to live for family life .

Couple of other points, not as many nasty critters as I thought (you should see some parts of Manchester!!!) and not much mention of what are the must go dive sites out there, please bear in mind my personal preference is for wreck diving - which we have plenty of over here.

Any more thoughts would be welcome

cheers

grahjam

sadave

Just ignore those people in the South-Eastern corner...

They feel the need to push their wheelbarrow, coz they live in the two most crowded and polluted (and just my opinion - worst) cities in Australia.


Seriously though, for decent wreck diving, any of Brisbane, Melbourne, and Perth are great.

I've dived and travelled a LOT around Australia (working for airlines for the last 7 years helps!)... and these are JUST my PERSONAL opinions, based on the diving I've done... I know the Sydney crowd are gonna hate me, but get over it guys!

Sydney, pretty much all the wrecks are just scuttled, with not much fishlife. Water is 15deg to 24deg depending on time of year. Some of the scuttled wrecks are "nice" but thats about it.

Melbourne have the ships graveyard, with some great wrecks, in 30-80m of water. Just up the road from Melbourne is Bermagui, with at least half a dozen wrecks in the 80 to 120m range. Water temps in Melbourne range from about 8deg to 18deg.

Brisbane has a heap of good wrecks from 30-80m, but its hard finding an operator to take you out, all the deeper stuff here is off private boats. But the water here is nice and toasty warm all year round! (18deg C to 26deg C).

Perth, they went through a phase for a while of finding a new deep wreck or two most weekends, but it all seems to have tailed off. There's only one boat doing the deeper stuff, but I must say, its a great boat. Water temps, 16 to 24 or so. (one of the locals can confirm, but that's what I've experienced!).

Liveability, If it wasn't for the fact that I've got a pretty good job, with potential for career development here in Brisbane, I'd move to Perth tomorrow. There is a good crowd of decent divers (Tech and Rebreather) that seems to be growing exponentially. And the more divers there are, of course the more the boats will get out to the "better" spots.
But having said that, I still reckon Brisbane comes a close second best.

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streamway_explorer

Sorry Dave, you being brain wash with too many QANTAS adds at work.
Its all in the numbers# lets just take from Rebreather World data base of members with same CCR as him.

Total Rebreather World members/ Vision/classic owners.
Sydney 115/ 9/26 =35 people with ap valves ccrs out of 115.
Melbourne 50/ 2/2 =4
Brisbane 35/ 1/8 =9
Perth 43 /1/6 =7

Since when has fish life being more important than finding brass on a wreck.
Dive the Advance wreck 1 hr north of Sydney and you will have to find a way to scare the fish off so you can see the wreck in the first place.

Brisbane they treat you like tourist doing your first dive,too many rules,
10 years behind the times,Example they even wake you up to sign the divemasters dive log when your trying to get some sleep on a live aboard dive boat and a group decides to do a dive,they have to prove they know where you are. Your need your own boat then your ok. But a beautiful place to live.

Melbourne lots of wrecks dumped in 3 areas. with some good wrecks in 80m plus depth but they have to cross the border into NSW to dive them. Toooooo cold most of the time IN the water. If you are serious about moving there due to work make sure you know how to get to Torquay,now thats a nice place with dive boat which can get most of your ccr supplys like sorb/O2 etc..

Sydney after 8 years since ap valves first supply 4x classics to Bazza,you can get on ANY dive boat and find a number of ccr divers on all boats. Most of our wrecks are real wrecks except for the ones at long reef. One even still has its bell still to be found. Lease amount of rules so you can actually go diving.

Perth nice place nice people at lease one charter boat for CCR for now with the small numbers of divers with ccr. growing fast due to mining boom, after Sydney would live in fremantle/perth, but Sydney is where the money is unless your are in the mining game. but at times you will have trouble finding someone to dive with on ccr. But Steve James and Luke of image dive and others are making tech diving a growing sport over there.

At the end of the day,where does your family want to go? Or you could reject all our advice and live in Hobart of all places. na dont do that.

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Michael Collins

www.trimixdivers.com

streamway_explorer

Wreck diving I dont think we can beat the UK for wrecks. we are not allow to take stuff off them as a rule. very little in the way of true war ships with big guns etc. but unlike the UK we dived all year round due to the mild weather except in the very south of Australia winter is like the UK.

Most of the guys go to South China Sea etc for a holiday of serious wreck diving.

Family life, you cant go wrong there, near any of the main cities, about 25mins from North or South of Sydney by car puts you in a nice areas. The other states the Dave,Steve can help there. I like the Qld/NSW Borer for Qld and south east of Perth. NE or SW along the coast for Melbourne. I live right on the coast 1.5 hr North of Sydney and just south of Newcastle due to cost of buying houses.

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Michael Collins

www.trimixdivers.com

Bazza

Mike .... in short the following figures can very easily be discribed as a total load of bollocks.

Total Rebreather World members/ Vision/classic owners.
Sydney 115/ 9/26 =35 people with ap valves ccrs out of 115.
Melbourne 50/ 2/2 =4
Brisbane 35/ 1/8 =9
Perth 43 /1/6 =7

I have sold over a 100 APD units myself .... regards Baz