The Tasmanian University Dive Club loaded the boat (Thumpin Willy) with four mad keen divers last weekend and launched from White Beach, on the south-east coast of Tasmania, with a bearing for Wedge Island.

With the purpose of surveying two sites, monitoring for urchin barrens and determining whether the dominant species in each barren is Heliocidaris erythrogramma (Common Urchin and native to Tasmania) or whether the introduced species Centrostephanus rodgersii is making it’s way down the east coast of Tasmania and slowing taking hold in the channel and inland waters of southern Tasmania.

The Centrostephanus urchin is an agressive species and in large numbers can/does cause catastrophic damage to marine habitats, inhaling kelp and algal cover which destroys the homes of hundreds if not thousands of fish and macroinvertebrates throughout the state.

A major hurdle for research of this type is that the introduced urchin is making its way down the coastal waters naturally via the East Australia Current. Whether this is due to warmer waters combined with climate change is yet to be proven. Our help with the research merely monitors the habitats around our state and we are helping build on the existing database of valuable location and migration data.

How can you help or get involved?

Its easy, and you don’t need heavy training. Check out the urchin survey website here: http://www.otsweb.net/SubmitaDiveReport/ReportaDiveSocialDive/tabid/660/language/en-US/Default.aspx.

Have a look through the website information and on every dive you complete, no matter where you dive in Tasmania, you can report on the general bottom cover (algal, kelp, barren rock), animals you see, and the biggest item we are after is how many urchin barrens (basically bare rock with urchins surrounding it, hiding in crevasses) and how many urchins exist in the immediate area, as well as the type of urchin. If you are keen to get involved, get onto the website above and check it out.

Govenors Island Marine Reserve (Bicheno Marine Reserve)
You cannot dive Tasmania and not visit the East Coast. About 50kms north of Coles Bay, the sleepy town of Bicheno is home to the Governors Island marine reserve. The reserve contains over 15 dives sites, including:

• Mt Everest
• The Castle
• Bird Rock
• Alligator Rock
• Golden Bommies
• Hairy Wall
• Trap Reep

Visibility is generally good all year round, with winter bringing the best vis which can reach 20m (great for temperate waters), and water temperatures range from 13 degrees C to 16 degrees in the summer months. The geography of the dive site is amazing. Mt Everest is an underwater mound that stretches from a sandy 40m bottom right up to 5m under the surface. Dropping in from the boat on this underwater mountain, you swim down a 20m drop-off into an enormous cavern, with soft corals, zoanthids and sea-grasses growing all around you. Follow this gully north and you reach Trap Reef, a surfer’s delight where the surf break on the surface can reach a couple of metres. Trap Reef is home to an abundant array of fishes including striped trumpeter, octopi, enourmous southern rocklobster, barracuda, leatherjacket, banded morwong, as well as the odd pod of southern right whales and dolphins.

Heading back south from Trap Reef and out of the Hairy Wall the sea floor is loaded with huge boulders, swim throughs and overhangs. Even further south and you hit Bird Rock. Bird Rock drops off to around 30m and has incredible crevices that extend 15m skyward, creating a labrinth of open top swim throughs filled with corals and macro inverts.

If you come to Tasmania to dive, Bicheno is a must, and with all of the dive sites being within 150m of shore you are guaranteed to get 3 unique and thoroughly enjoyable dives in each day.

How about dive gear?

The Bicheno Dive Centre is open every day and has plenty of rental gear available. They also run charters out to each of the sites above as well as filling your personal tanks for $10 each.

Where should I stay?

The Big Four caravan park runs Cosy Cabins just off the main road. Cabins start as around $110 for two people. But with each room sleeping up to 6 individuals you can add $15 per extra person, making it very affordable for a dive club trip or group of divers.

Bicheno Dive Centre also has accommodation but for the price, the cabins can’t be beaten. And there is room to park a boat, fill tanks if you bring your own compressor, or just relax away from it all.

Check out Google maps or the snapshot to the left for a quick look at Bicheno and Governors Island. All of the dive sites are to the right of the island, above Alligator’s Rock.

I hope you had a great new years, full of turkey and diving! I had the pleasure of being invited to take part in a four day

Reef Life Survey

scientific dive training expedition. A Tasmanian initiative, the team from Reef Life Survey (an associate of TAFI) and a group of 6 trainee divers explored around 8kms of rugged Tasmanian coastline in and around the Peninsula, around Port Arthur, while also ducking into Fortesque Bay.

A great project with a goal of mapping sea life from around the entire coastline of Australia, it will not only provide migration and distribution information to researchers and the general public, Reef Life Survey also has the potential to isolate high impact areas and the data gathered by recreational divers trained in the art of survey and analysis WILL be used to push for extended and new Marine Protected Area’s (MPA’s) throughout our stunning country.

If you haven’t yet checked out the details, click on the ‘Reef Life Survey’ link on the right. Rick and his team have a smorgasbord of information and training dates which are occuring in each Australian state, all year round.

Feel free to comment in any reef sites in your local area that you have noticed change in. We are constantly looking for new sites that have the highest potential to induce change!

I have been a little lax over the last few weeks and not posting on the chronicles, but I have a valid excuse… the doc has given a big red light to my diving.

Even after 6 weeks of patiently waiting, pondering everything that may be going on under the blue in my absence, my doctor discovered a small hole still exists in the membrane of my left ear. Gutted. Diving is again off the radar for another 2-3 weeks.

In the interim I have taken the time to run through my gear and compile a checklist of diving equipment that is essential for diving in Tasmania’s temperate waters. If you are diving here in Tasmania or teetering on heading south for a new and exciting diving adventure, then run through this checklist. Some are obvious but it never hurts to state it:

• Mask and Snorkel
• 2-piece 7mm wetsuit (for winter diving)
• Fins
• Dive booties
• Gloves
• Catch bag and trash bag
• Weight belts and weights (an increased amount compared to tropical diving)
• Dive knife
• Wetsuit wash fluid
• Mark anti-fog
• Spear gun or Hawaiian sling
• Rash vest
• Regulators and dive computer
• Compass
• Dive torch plus backup light
• BCD
• Underwater camera
• Dive flag
• GPS device for tracking hard-to-find sites
• Tasmanian dive site book and maps

As soon as my doctor gives the green light to diving, I will be undertaking my Dive Masters qualifications to begin taking advantage of diving as more than a hobby and to help spread the amazing underwater experiences to others.

Here’s hoping I can get back in the big blue asap.

Sea Urchin attempting to devour a premature kelp plant.

I recently had the pleasure to speak with Andy Muirhead and Jo Spargo on ABC radio about worldwide conservation projects, particularly for Whalesharks and what our local dive clubs are doing to support ecosystems closer to home.

Check out my spiel on Whaleshark research by navigating through the archives on the right, as there are a number of great volunteer programs to consume you. Our local Tasmanian University Dive Club is becoming increasingly involved in conservation and research around our little island and our main focus this year is Sea Urchin research to help study the seemingly natural migration of the East Australian Sea Urchin which is eating away at our coastal reef and marine ecosystems. From initial investigations it appears that the Sea Urchins are able to spawn further south on the Australian mainland and the eastern currents are carrying these spawning young across the Bass Strait to land in the protected and by the barrens they are leaving, more tasty habitats of Tasmania.

Our work in inline with around 5 other local dive clubs in an attempt to run transects at strategic points around the coast, mapping out their mass, estimated growth rate, and penetration further south. Urchins have been found as far as Reserche Bay and on the southern most tip of Tasmania.

Other projects in the pipeline for our divers is Spotted Handfish research, Introduced Species research, and Whaleshark tagging in Africa late next year. You can find out further information on our efforts with the Sea Urchin project at www.otsweb.net/divesurveys.

What is left after a group of Sea Urchins decimate what was once a habitat for other fishes.

The image to the right is the effect of urchins on mass totally destroying a once thriving ecosystem. Once a barren is created, it only takes a fraction of the original urchin population to maintain its decimation.

Current experiments include the introduction of deep sea Southern Rock Lobsters (those over 2 kilograms) in an attempt to monitor their feeding habits and whether urchins are a favourite on their diet. A research area has been created at St Helens on the east coast of Tasmania which is now a no take zone for Southern Rock Lobster while the research is being conducted.

The TUDC will be completing transects further south at Wedge Island as soon as the weather eases up and the water becomes a little warmer.