Well today went almost to plan, which was to head out to Barren's Hut then make a decision on dive 2 during our surface interval. It all started while gearing up, we strapped on the nitrox when I heard, "Houston we have a problem", Rudy's tank was only filled to 160 bar, a quick check and I had 220. We decided to strap on some air, and do a deco dive on Barren's. Nitrox tanks back in the truck.

While launching the boat, a light bulb went on, I just recently bought a Din-Din top up hose for my Pony. What if we hooked up the 2 nitrox tanks, we would have about 190 each......Chucked the nitrox back in the boat and off we went. While I was releasing the anchors Rudy equalised the 2 nitrox tanks with the DIN-DIN hose and about 195 each.

Well what can I say about Barren's, its just an amazing place. After anchoring  I was looking out the back of the boat while gearing up and saw a brown patch in the water, yes a turtle, a bit far away but this is what Barren's Hut is all about, the unexpected, like new years eve when we saw the Sun Fish.

We dropped down to 22m and Rudy swan off to the front anchor to make sure it wasn't going to come loose, and I was hovering over a PJ, quick snap on the camera, did I mention my new Strobe Inon Z240 great stuff, anyway we headed south I was out in the lead when I heard hoot...hoot...hoot...hoot it was Rudy on the horn, I quickly turned around and watched Rudy being buzzed by the turtle, Snap, snap, snap only got one reasonable shot, but what a buzz.

Lots of caves overhangs and swim throughs and time to go, 15min deco on the bar, quick swim down to release the anchors, and another 5 mins deco for me.

While anchored at Barren's we saw Sea Tamer with divers about 500m south of where we were, we decided that was the go for dive 2 of the day. A quick run around to Jibbon for a cuppa and off to the dive site.

Well what we saw underwater here was again amazing, lots of caves, swim throughs and overhangs, fish life like you couldn't believe, I snapped away happily, Tom Byron's book shows this place as "The Balconies" and Michael McFadyen shows it as "Underwater Wilderness/The Gullies", well it certainly lives up to the name. S..t loads of fish everywhere, what else can I say.

Barren's Hut

The Gullies/Balconies