Hi all, Welcome to another edition of Shack Chat. Scuba Shack Ezine.

As I write this I am sitting at the computer with the heater blaring at my feet. It is 11am and the air temp is currently 10ª. Our mid week open water course has left for their ocean dives in what looks like beautiful flat and clear conditions. Now the good news is that the water temp is currently 18ª! So they are the lucky ones!

What an absolutely awesome weekend it was for diving last weekend! Even I got in the water on Sunday! Saturday we took advantage of the flat conditions and jumped into flat rock at Soldiers Beach. While there was a little surge, the dive was a nice one. Sunday saw us head up to Swansea Bridge. The dive was amazing, so many fish it was like being in an aquarium. While at first it felt a little nippy I still spent one hour on the mark under there. It never ceases to amaze me under there. I can honestly say that even on the murkiest dive I have enjoyed every minute of it. While Greg took the club Divers on their excursion, Lee and I hung to the wall for quite a while marvelling at the different species, I think I could have done the whole dive along the wall and not even gone under the bridge. However very glad I did when greeted with huge Brim and Leather Jackets as well as the odd Kingy. We weaved our way in and around the pylons delighting in everything we saw. When we did start to make our way back the tide had started to turn slightly and we let the current take us back slowly. Our safety stop was done hanging on to the ropes looking at the Nudibranchs along the edge. I must have been relaxed as when I finally popped up I was under for a whole hour and still had 95 bar in the cylinder.

On the way home Lee and I stopped of at Catho to check out the coal loader. What an awesome site that was. We could see the bottom right to the end of the loader, this would have been a fantastic 2nd dive for the day but we were so cold by then the Maccas coffee was more inviting.

The Boat dive on Saturday was a great dive at the Valiant Wreck led by Rusty. A great dive was had by all on board. Monday’s boat dive was at Hole in the Wall led by Lee and once again a great dive.

We are now expecting final payments for our Vanuatu Coolidge trips in the next few weeks so if you are still thinking about jumping on you only have about a week to make up your mind before the trip books are closed. This will be the last time that the Coolidge will be under $2000.00 and already the prom deck has collapsed to the ocean floor. It would be a shame to miss the chance of a life time to get down and see her mystery and beauty for this price.

Don’t forget we are off to South West Rocks at the end of the month. If you have not got in with your deposit yet, please do so. We have 9 spots left and as usual this is the most popular of our domestic destinations and the trips always fill fast. We also only have 3 spots left for the Dive with the Seals trip to Jervis Bay.

I cannot stress enough the importance of putting your deposit down for trips. I know I bring this up time and time again, but I always seems to get “but I told you I was going”. Guys, without a deposit you do not have a spot, just saying that you are going to go will not get you on the trip. Only those who have paid their deposits will be guaranteed a spot on any trip done with us at Scuba Shack.

As of next week our hire gear price for Members will be $50.00 (increased by $5) We have not increased the price of the hire gear for over 3 years and we have superior hire gear to most other shops in the area. All our BCD’s are weight integrated, our wetsuits are warm with no rips or holes and our regs are all APEX regs with computer consoles attached.

Last week we announced some great course deals. These deals will only be available for this price for a short time. As soon as the course is full we won’t be doing any rain checks. So if you are keen to jump on I would get moving and get your names on the lists. You are crazy if you don’t!

We will also be running an Advanced Adventure Course for those who would like to better their diving skills and open you up to more diving like Night and Drift.

Also last but not least. Come along to the Great White Shark talk at Terrigal.