Hi,
thought we would post a few photos from the Whyalla trip- way fun, and hundreds of cuttles everywhere- dive right from the beach, 6-7 meters, calm , protected, (with an 18 foot great white sighted three days before we arrived!) Love to do it again with a proper camera-
cheers,
Laurie and Chris

some more pics
first one is two males fighting, the second one is of Laurie and the last one of Chris .... and there's some divers in the background ;)

and more, the top one is mating cuttles, the middle one is of a male and a female basking in the afterglow, and the bottom one is of some stray eggs stuck on a sea urchin

and then some more :)

That just rocks!

Those are just great. You may think you don't have a proper camera, but it's good enough to make me profoundly envious. So many cuttles! :grin:

very cool!

I haven't been diving for years; I really need to get back to it!

Thanks for posting those!

WoW

Nice photography; even if you don't believe your gears up to! Still, I would have rather been there myself.

Wow. Just wow. Maybe my ultimate Bond-Villain retreat ought to be in OZ so I can keep THESE in my trap-door aquarium...

Seriously. Truly beautiful. Great pics.

beautiful photos, you're causing some serious envy from this desert dweller!
greg

hiyas,
thanks for all the great feedback on the pics, the cameras we used were cheap disposable marine cameras which came with the waterproof housing. We used two kinds, one with 800 ISO film and the other had 400 ISO film. luckily there was enough light at these shallow depths (6 - 7m) and gillions of cuttles.
It doesn't really become apparent in the pictures, but after concentrating on one or two cuttles for some time and looking up and realising that there's actually hundreds of these beautiful beasts as far as you could see around is an awesome feeling.... everytime it happened.
the world under there is truly an alien environment for people and we were the only two people down there during the 3 days we were constantly diving.
what a thing to share with someone you love!!! ;)

Chris

Thank you for posting these. They are astounding images and are as good as the very best we've ever had in the last five years at TONMO. I look forward to more pictures from you in the future.

I'm so jealous, I'd love to have been there...

Welcome too!

thanks, we had a great time...the guy who owns the dive shop in Wyalla, Tony Bramley at Why Dive is a passionate supporter of cuttlefish which were almost fished to extinction a few years back. He is very friendly and informative, and rents all gear at very reasonable rates. Most of the spawning grounds are protected now and the numbers are coming back- apparently it peaks around next week so there will be masses more than what we saw diving...I can hardly imagine it...there is free camping in a beautiful deserted bay with dolphins, Whyalla sports a large steel manufacturing plant, and a petrochemical plant, weirdly enough the breeding ground is right next to this, and there is a small protected area near the docking pier.
cheers,
Laurie

just a couple of extra photos,
the first one is of the beach we had to climb over with 15kg weights strapped on and our tanks and other dive gear on ... the rocks were pretty hard to navigate over. At the shallow depths we dived at we got about 2 hours out of every tank :)
the second photo is what we woke up to in the morning at our campsite, it was magical.
and the third photo is what we went to bed to!
give yourself a treat and go to whyalla sometime.

Wow, that is really beautiful!