Abyss Scuba Diving > dive@abyss.com.au > +61 2 9583 9662 > Sydney > Australia    

The Coming Week

Flat warm water with great visibility. We will be tight on hire equipment so please book early.

High tide is at 09:01am on Saturday and at 09:51am on Sunday

Saturday 30^th January

9:30am Double Bombo Wreck Dive (28m)

10am Double Shore Dive Oak Park

Sunday 31st January

7am Coolooli (40-50m)& Apartments (18m) Double Boat Dive

9am Double Shore Dive Shell Harbour limited spots left!

Friday 5th February

10am Double Shore Dive Leap to Steps/Steps

Sunday 7th February

10am Centurion and the apartments Double Boat Dive

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Club Night

 

Last nights club night was awesome! We all got hot and sweaty running around trying to beat all the little kids who have an unfair advantage being so short!! We even had time for some funky dance moves on the dance game and Sam thrashed Jamie on the air hockey!

We headed to the Taren Point Hotel for a drink and some food after all we had been doing some serious exercise we needed to hydrate!!

 

Don't forget next months club night on the 24^th Feb.

 

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What are we doing now?

Sam Leeson & Kellie Oldfield

 

Currently we have one of the best most sort after dive jobs in the world! We are the onboard managers on the MV Bilikiki which is a world class liveaboard in the Solomon Islands.  We live full time on the 110 foot boat, we manage a crew of 11 local Solomon Islanders who captain the boat, look after all the equipment, fill the tanks, clean the cabins and cook for the guest while Sam and I  dive with the guest and we make sure everything runs smoothly and the guest are having a good time and happy. We take up to 20 guests at a time for trips of up to 7 nights to 14 nights.

 

 

We get to meet many famous underwater photographers and personalities and tons of interesting people. Every day we dive pristine dive sites, famous sites such as Leru Cut, Mary Island and Devil Highway. We see an amazing variety of marine life from pelagics, with schools of mantas, tons of sharks, turtles, schooling jacks and barracudas to tiny macro life like pygmy seahorses, ghost pipefish, nudis, cuttlefish, octopus, crocodile fish, plus loads more, all in 29-30 degree water. Local islanders  paddle out in their dugout canoes to sell me fresh fruit and veg almost everyday, I visit villages where not much has changed in hundreds of years and everytime I step outside my cabin I am faced with the most amazingly clear blue water, palm trees and white sandy beaches.  It honestly doesnt get much better.

 

 

Where did it all start?

I (Kellie) became a DM and AI with Peter Letts at Abyss Scuba Diving back in 2000 I worked at Abyss Scuba Diving and completed my instructor course and exams at the start of 2001. I worked at Abyss for 31/2 years before leaving to try working overseas.   Sam also did his AI and OWSI training at Abyss Scuba Diving while working in the shop from 2002. The training and work experiences we both undertook at Abyss helped us both gain employment as a dive instructor all over the world

 

We have done a few other dive jobs on our way to the Bilikiki in the Solomon Islands. We worked in Utila, a small island off the coast of Honduras for 12 months teaching endless Openwater courses and overseeing  a small backpackers hotel.   We spent 3months teaching dive courses and working as  dive guides in the Galapagos Islands. We spent a year running an eco lodge & dive operation in Vanuatu. They have all been amazing experiences, living in truly beautiful places, doing something we love. Both of us could not imagine doing anything else. 

Kellie & Rachael were the first 2 divemasters and Instructors Abyss ever trained. We trained Sam up to instructor level a couple of years latter. If all this makes your job appear a bit borring then you also could look at a career in diving. We have a Careers Information night comming up on the 10th of March. Why don't you come along.

Here is a chance to ask all those questions you want to find the answeres to. We will have senior staff from PADI, Abyss Staff and a few of those luck people who have made diving not just a life style but the basis of their careers.

 

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Courses

13-14th February Advanced Open Water Sydney

20-21st February Rescue Diver

27-28th February Advanced Open Water Jervis Bay

27th February Divemaster

Dive Travel

 

Lake Jindabine diving is not something that you do every day. It is fresh water, altitude adventure diving! It is more than thirty years since the old township was flooded, prior to flooding most of the homes were packed onto trucks and removed. So what is left, well the streets are well and truly covered in the fine silt that covers the lake floor. But throughout the area there are remnants of the bygone area, from old Blitzer truck bodies to steps that once lead to churches.

Some people say the dive is, like a ghostly shipwreck it reaches out of the green gloom, the Thermocline can be drastic here. Various relics will appear as you drift along, a glass jar, trees bricks. This is no Great Barrier Reef, its cold, dark and different, but trust me it is exciting and likely like nothing you have dived before. This is certinally a must do trip for the keen diver that you will remember for ever! On next trip is 27-28 February and places are very limited.

 

Other Trips

6-7^th February Ocean Trek Jervis Bay

27-28^th February Jervis Bay

27-28 February Lake Jindabyne

13-14^th March Nelson Bay

27-28^th March HMAS Brisbane

3^rd -12^th April Palau (FULL)

3-6^th April Mt Gambier

12-19h May  Solomon Islands

28-30Th June Minki Whale Trip (Great Barrier Reef)