Underwater Research Group of New South Wales
Presidents Slate
Hey all,
The bulletin is out super late, which is becoming standard practice, but this time we've had so many developments over the last few days and weeks that every time I'm about to hit send another thing pops up that will take a "few more days until we'll have an answer."
4 big announcements, 2 citizen science project calling for your help and 1 one admin related one.
TLDR:
The boat is back in the water!!!!!!! (Read on for the fine print)
The AGM is on the 21 Sept (details TBC) - get your nominations in for the new committee
We got a $3000 grant towards the boat engine from Blue World Valerie Taylor Ocean Prize awards night
The Bunnings fundraiser in July brought us circa $2000 in bank notes
It's crunch time in NSW with shark nets set to return to the water on Sept 1st. The decision on whether they will or not has not been made yet. See section at the end of the bulletin to see how to help.
Support our citizen science by sharing your knowledge about weedy sea dragons by completing this quick survey
The mailing link on the website is broken, so submitting nominations, membership applications, renewals etc aren't coming through. We're in discussions with our web hosts to fix it, and in the meantime please email us directly until this is resolved: urgnsw@gmail.com
So the boat: HUGE thanks to Josh, Vishal, Jens, Hatty, John Swift, Pablo who teamed up and spend the last few weekends and some time in between arranging for the mounting of the new engine. Not to mention our generous donors and purveyors of parking lot bangers (aka Bunnings warriors) who made this all possible.
Club dives will open up again in the coming weeks following a dry run to make sure the engines are running smoothly. Watch your emails!
Photos by Hatty, who was behind the lens but hasn't yet mastered the art of selfie group photos.
The AGM is set for Saturday 21 September. We are planning a similar theme as last year - morning dive for those that are interested, followed by a pub lunch in the afternoon (venue TBC). Please let us know if you're interested in standing on the committee. Applications close one week before the date of the AGM. Bear in mind that we're having trouble with the emails coming in from the website so reach out directly until we resolve this.
Big thanks to those who volunteered at the Bunnings sausage sizzle in July. We raised around $2000 for the club and appreciate the effort from all, esp Hatty who ran the day.
We are also excited to share and grateful to Blue Ocean who hosted an annual prize giving event at the Maritime Museum last week. The idea behind the event is to help fund marine conservation initiatives in NSW. URG submitted an application for the work we're doing in enabling citizen science initiatives and we got awarded $3000 grant towards keeping the boat in the water.
Big thanks to Merran Hughes CEO of Blue World and Valerie Taylor for helping us achieve our aims. You can read about what Blue World does here. Club members Charlie, Duncan, Sarah, Anne and Walter attended the evening and supported the event. URG got an outstanding amount of coverage. We put together a 16 min sample of underwater footage covering the temperate region from the Solitary Islands to Narooma which screened for the audience during the presentations complimented with a performance by local (and famous) jazz artist Matt McMahon.
Looking forward to being back in the water with you all.
Cheers,
Duncan Heuer
DIVE REPORTS
Solomon Islands
by Michael Abbott
Pygmy mantas at Uepi thanks to Greg Conwell
Raja Ampat
Some members went here. We would love to hear about the experience? September bulletin?? Nudge nudge!
URG - First winter dive in a 7mm and a sleeveless frogskin AKA the cold underwater therapy
by Reka Spallino
It is Saturday morning, the 20th of July 2024, and what do I do? I decide it is time to overcome my fear of diving in a wetsuit in winter in Sydney and go for a SCUBA dive. The road is familiar, I am very excited and almost continue on the M1 to Newcastle. It has been almost 16 weeks, I haven’t been doing this.
At the parking lot, there is already Taj waiting for me and a bunch of other divers that are getting ready. 8am on a Saturday is not the earliest for a SCUBA activity. Taj is a diver I met from the VIZ - Sydney Diving Visibility Report on Facebook. I am super slow in gearing up and Taj is very patient. My last fun dive in Sydney was on the 4th of April 2024 and my last fun dive in general was on the 21st of April in New Zealand.But who is counting, right? In between I had [thanks to the Gods and Goddesses of the Ocean] the Shark Diving in the Aquarium, but that’s different. ITW=8:50am 82min 8.2m 15-16C viz=up to 5m.
Trying to avoid the other divers, we do the net, the pier super slowly and the seahorses hotel. It is a great plan because at the pier we see just another couple of divers (both with split fins) and at the seahorses hotel we are alone until again a couple of divers show up for a brief encounter. After the seahorses hotel, I hit Atlantis. I really like that spot and had to check it out after so many weeks. There I am fascinated by the sad amount of entangled fishnet, from the head statue to the sand. So I take my knife out and begin a bit of a clean up. Cleaning up is satisfying, makes me feel good, makes me move and distracts my brain from the cold.
After the clean up I go back to the pier that has now surprisingly clearer visibility than earlier. Is it the sunlight or is it the absence of split fins divers???
I go back to the net, this time heading west to exit closer to the car.
My highlights of the dive are: a lot of seahorses (a couple also at the pier), 2 dendrodoris gunnamatta nudibranchs (one almost as big as my hand), a baby Australian numbfish exiting, being able to avoid the crowd of divers who also were there and of course the capability of doing 82min in a 7mm semi-dry wetsuit that is more dry than my dry suit [see video for proof] and a sleeveless frog skin.
URG - 27th of July 2024 ~ Gordon’s Bay
by Reka Spallino
It is Saturday morning, the 27th of July 2024, and what do I do? I meet up with friends and we go for a SCUBA dive in Gordon’s Bay. We are a group of 5 divers, all experienced and it is ages since I have been diving with them. One diver and friend is part of the Gordon’s Bay Scuba Diving Club and helps maintain the chain. We meet up at 7:30am, the weather is horrible, it is cold 13C and the rain is starting.Once all are there, I try to bail and ask if we want to go for breakfast instead. People look at me as I would have been an alien. So we all gear up.I make it clear that I am aiming for 45min, being cold outside, there are no big chances for a 60min dive for me.
ITW=8:31am 13.1m 50min 15-16C viz=10mWe do the trail anti-clockwise. The new parts of the chain are really shiny. Visibility is stunning, my best ever there and the blue is really blue.
We see the usual suspects and my highlights are = 5-6 port jackson sharks, all pretty big (40cm) and a bit of a clean up (collecting also a yellow golf ball).
I was indeed cold and had to leave the group at 45min but it was sooooo worthy! After the dive we go for a nice brunch to regain the calories we have lost!
URG - First pre-work winter dive ~ The cold underwater therapy continues
It is Thursday morning, the 25th of July 2024, and what do I do? I wake up 30 min before the set alarm, 4:30am, get changed into my swimmers and a lot of layers because outside is cold and actually my apartment is also not the warmest place of the planet, have my hot lemon juice, my pu erh tea and a filling breakfast with weet-bix, mango, strawberry and banana.
Around 5:15am I hit the road, direction = my favourite pre-work dive site in Sydney, Chowder Bay.
At the parking lot, there is already Taj waiting for me.
Taj is a diver I met from the VIZ - Sydney Diving Visibility Report on Facebook. Not only comes to dive with me on the weekends but is also the only diver who on a working day is happy to be there in pitch dark at 6:00am and enter the cold waters around 6:30am.
I am faster in gearing up. The long non diving period has been broken but this is indeed my first pre-work dive in winter 2024, after almost 16 weeks.
ITW=6:40am 7.6m 60min 15C viz=2-3m
We do the net, nice and slowly and then the pier even slower. It is very dark entering but still enjoyable. We see the usual suspects and my highlights are two baby catfish, a seahorse at the pier, a moray eel without one eye, and doing a little clean up at the end.
History Articles
2001 - URG Reef
by Grahame Burns
On our last November "Undersea Explorer" liveaboard trip, instead of diving the last dive at Agincourt Reef as usual, we were taken to an unnamed reef just south of St Crispins. It is now known as URG Reef.
The weather was sunny, calm with no current. This reef was about the length of a football field and about sixty feet wide. The reef started eight metres below the surface and went down to twenty metres before degenerating into sandy and rocky rubble before disappearing into the depths. As it hadn’t been dived for some years, it was in pristine condition. There were beautiful eight foot plus sea whips, the largest gorgonians seen on the trip, very pretty plate corals and schools of scissors-tailed and other types of fusiliers. Yellow tail perch, schools of antheas and other sundry reef fish as well as clouds of juveniles etc etc. In all, it was lovely to dive on a fresh clean unused location, which gives the impression of a lot of potential for great exploration. I’m sure if we’d had time, we would have found many interesting beasties. One of our best dives!
Incidentally, whilst I didn’t dive every dive or stay under longest, I still managed 27 out of the 28 dives at an average of 59 minutes per dive. So these trips, while apparently costly, are really good value both for underwater and quality of location - not to mention the passing parade of marine life and on-board conviviality.
1953 - Taken from Spearfishing News December 1953
“A step very much in the right direction was the recent formation by the committee of The Underwater Research Group. Its activities will include safety research, correctly conducted tests of the penetrative power of various spearguns, underwater photographs, specimen collection, breathing gear etc. Among URG’s Members are such names as Lawson, Wells, Barton and the convenor is none other than Mr Godfrey Leonard Gapp (Alias Goff).”
Recent Events and News and Upcoming Events
Saturday 24th August - get your hands dirty keeping the ocean rubbish free and join Pablo for a clean up dive. Meeting at Clifton Gardens at 9 am.
Wednesday 4th September - a very special General Meeting at the Oaks. Dr Penny Berents, Senior Fellow, Australian Museum Research Institute will be joining us to discuss Exploring the deep sea: what lives at 5000 metres? We will hear all about two deep sea expeditions, one to the Indian Ocean and the other to the Great Australian Bight. Dr Penny Berents will explain how they sample at those depths, some of the animals they found and all about life on board a research ship.
Saturday 21st September - the AGM - Stay tuned for more information and if you are interested in being part of the new committee please get your nominations in here https://www.urgdiveclub.org.au/committee-nomination-form before the 14th of September. You must have been a member for at least 6 months to join the committee. Please reach out to any of the current committee members if you would like more info about what is involved!
28-29th September - Go Diving Show ANZ at the Sydney Showground
Keeping the Shark Nets Out for Good
It's crunch time in NSW with shark nets set to return to the water on Sept 1st. The decision on whether they will or not has not been made yet, so we need your help on some actions to ensure they do not.
A core aspect of the Underwater Research Group of NSW is our commitment to promoting citizen science and advocating for marine conservation. Shark nets have been used in NSW since 1937 and despite all scientific evidence suggesting that they do not protect bathers, are merely offering a false sense of security to beachgoers (arguably more dangerous), and year after year data proving that the animals that suffer most in the nets are non-target species like dolphins, rays, seals, whales and turtles, they continue to be installed every year in NSW between 1 September and 30 April. URG members have been campaigning to help encourage the government to ditch these outdated practices. We are the closest we have ever been! And you can help us!
We would ask all who have a few moments to spare, please send the below email (or similar) to both office@sharpe.minister.nsw.gov.au and tara.moriarty@parliament.nsw.gov.au. If you could ask your friends, families and other supporters to do the same via a call to action in the next few weeks, that would be the icing on the cake!
Dear Ministers Sharpe and Moriarty,
I write to you both as the two Ministers jointly responsible for New South Wales shark nets, as per the shark meshing Joint Management Agreement (JMA).
I understand that the Joint Management Agreement has not met its objectives for the past decade, and I ask that shark nets not be returned to the water on Sept 1st this year.
Ms Sharpe, you can help to achieve this by using your powers to terminate the JMA for failing to meet its objectives. We feel this document acts as nothing more than a license to kill, and as the only such agreement in the entire state, has no place in modern Government.
Ms Moriarty, you can achieve this by following scientific advice of both the Threatened Species Scientific Committee (TSSC) and Fisheries Scientific Committee (FSC) to discontinue the use of shark nets, in favour of the suite of modern non-lethal technologies already being successfully used in NSW.
We have learnt so much about sharks and the ocean since 1937, and it is now time to put this archaic and ineffective program behind us, in line with your election commitment.
Thank you for your time, and I truly hope 2024 is the year that we bring NSW beach safety into the 21st century.
Kind regards,
Project Restore - SIMS
Project Restore, led by the Sydney Institute of Marine Science is a significant multi-habitat restoration project taking place right here in Sydney Harbour! Read more about the project here: https://projectrestore.sims.org.au/
The team are interested in the social and economic benefits which may come from this restoration project. To understand this they are surveying locals, visitors and businesses about their experience of using and visiting locations around Sydney Harbour. The locations listed in the survey are specific to our Project Restore restoration sites.
We know Sydney Harbour is an incredibly diverse playground - whether you’re swimming, kayaking, boating, commuting or diving, tell us about your experience!
Please help by filling in the survey and share how you enjoy and interact with the harbour!
Dive Log and Oz Diver
Boat Dives
The Boat will soon be back in action. Watch your emails, the Facebook group page for details.
Boat handling lessons.
Get in touch if interested
Editors Note
Published Items. The opinions expressed in the “URG Bulletin” are not necessarily those held by members, or the committee of the URG Dive Club. All material published in the URG Bulletin will remain the property of the original author or artist. Please give acknowledgement when citing articles.
Please check with the author informing them of your intention to republish their material, prior to publishing your article.
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