Continuing my Divemaster training here with Pro Dive at Lord Howe Island, I have been able to lead several dives by myself and I am starting to get used to diving without a camera! It is quite enjoyable swimming around looking for things to point out.

The divers have all been quite good which makes my job a lot easier and everyone has been very happy with the diving, with myself no exception. The few dives I have done with the new Sony HD camera and housing from Light and Motion, it has performed well. I didn’t need a torch for a night dive, just turned on the video lights and lit up the seafloor. The second dive I did with the camera, we were circled by a pod of 8 dolphins and Tas and I both got it on video!

During my spare time I have been talking to the Marine Park Authority and together with Pro Dive, we have been looking into some future projects including:

• Using recreational divers for invertebrate surveys, in particular assessing the numbers of sea urchins and crown of thorns starfish. There have been some recent increases in sea urchins on some of the offshore reefs, so monitoring may be useful to see positive or negative effects on the coral community.
• Monitoring the FADS (fish aggregating devices) NSW fisheries have recently placed at either end of the island. FADS are essentially a large float on a rope that is anchored in deep water. This is provided for charter fishing boats to catch pelagic fish such as mahi mahi and wahoo. These devices can be beneficial for fish stocks by shifting fishing pressure away from slower growing reef fish to fast growing pelagic fish. I am looking forward to diving them and hopefully I see a wahoo!
• The effects of fish feeding at Neds beach, where fish are frequently fed food scraps from the restaurants, and tourists provide a constant supply of bread. Although it is great to see lots of big fish close to shore that are not scared of people, the kingfish do not look healthy. This is likely from eating unnatural food such as bread. They have also changed their natural foraging behaviour and now just hang around the beach rather than swimming around chasing their fish prey.

There is a great diversity of fish here, hence Tas and I have been going through some of his video footage trying to get together a video to play at the dive shop to show people all the different species and what they are likely to see on their dive.

I have done some fun dives with Tas and the old manager and pioneer diver Jeff ‘Deaco’ Deacon. We have seen some great fish such as a couple huge black cod (endangered in NSW) and many smaller ones, lots of sharks, kingfish, angelfish and many others.

I have completed most of the theory for my Divemaster and have performed nearly all my practical activities. I also recently climbed Mt Gower, 850m above sea level and a 14km treck up the mountain! The view was awsome and well worth it.  So for a nice quiet island there is plenty to keep me busy!