Awesome day yesterday. For those who haven't seen story on facebook, here it is.
Arrived at Woolamai for a 9am start. As Andrew said, not the best conditions. In the beginning everybody headed in the Woolamai beach direction. I went the opposite and headed for the 1st big bommie. In the 1st hour I had 4 or 5 fish on my stringer and I had just dropped a maggie on my berly pin. It all seems like a blur but from what I remember I had dived down and missed a shot on a fish, I looked up and out of the murkiness a killer whale swam past me within 3 or 4m. I can't even explain what it was like. I was in awe and shitting myself at the same time. To see something that size cutting through the water is just awesome. When I got to the surface I started swimming around the back of the bommie as the ledge was too high to get onto, then a wave came in and I managed to clamber onto the ledge. I put my mask fins and gun up on the next ledge and then climbed up another meter to watch the orcas. After a couple of "what the fucks" I went back down to where my gear was and stupidly sat there watching the Orcas breaking the water. Next thing a wave bigger than the previous ones washed over the ledge and took me back into the drink along with half my gear including the head cam with the orcas on it. I also ripped the arse out of my wetsuit.
After that I got right up on top of the bommie and watched the orcas proceed around into the bay where everyone was diving. There was an adult and a juvenile. The juvenile Orca headed over to where the boats were anchored for a few minutes, then I could see the adult Orca head towards the other headland where Jake was.The adult orca breaking the water was cool. It's dorsal fin was easily 1.5m out of the water. It broke the surface 5 or 6 times and then disappeared. They definitely seen a lot more divers than divers seen them
I had lost half my gear at this stage and after a bit of good will from Tom he gave me his fins, mask and snorkel to finish out the day. He gave me his gear at 1st to look for my gear but I kept seeing good comp species so ditched the search and got back to the comp. Spent another 4 hours in the water with a sun burnt ass to prove it(picture attached).
To add to all that my bungee snapped and my boat float nearly sank on the swim back to the boat. Brett got a good laugh out of that.
Big thanks to Russel and Tom for helping me out when I was stranded on that bommie. Also thanks to Brett for coming and checking on me when I went for a long swim.
On the plus side, Muzz went out this morning and found all the gear I had lost apart from my cam. There's still hope for the cam as it could be right up tight in the white wash so the next flat day it might be found. Cheers Muzz, you're a machine!
As Andrew said, great bunch of lads(and girls). I really enjoyed the last couple of club outings. Great to see some new regulars at the comps as well.
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