http://www.vsag.org.au/ Victorian Sub-Aqua Group en-au Winter has ended with a bang! The last 5 weeks have seen flat seas, clear water, great diving and numerous sightings of Whales. Dives have been held at both Phillip Island and around the Lonsdale outer reefs each week. With Spring starting we have a strong program of weekly dives scheduled and available to members via our club Magazine "Fathoms" Non members wishing to join in just contact one of the committee for details. Our AGM is being held on Thursday 15th September and the includes the awarding of the much coveted Fathoms Literary Award, Club member of the year as well as the not so coveted Wooden weightbelt award. All members in attendance will get free finger food. Without doubt the biggest night of the year! This years Melbourne Cup weekend will be held at Inverloch at a private house. Members will get emails early in Spring advising them of the details. http://www.vsag.org.au/News/article/sid=212.html Its been a fairly ordinary start to winter, but on the last day of July we got a pearler of a day. Several members went out from Queenscliff and a couple from Barwon Heads onto millpond conditions and 18C air temps. Dives were successful onto the Lost Reef (35m) The Milora (40) and Neighbour Reef off Barwon heads (21m). Viz was in the order of 10-12m and the water a cool 11C. The Queenscliff crews also got some amazing sightings of Humpback whales, that came up towards the boats and stuck around for over an hour. Awesome stuff![b] http://www.vsag.org.au/News/article/sid=211.html As we enter Winter this year the club will be organising dives on a fortnightly basis. If the weather proves too bad on the chosen week, then the following week will be targetted for the dive. Dives will be planned the week before, taking into account the prevailing weather and the decision of where to dive will be made by the Dive Captain 1-2 days before the chosen day. Keep an eye out for emails to members in the week before the dive. Winter last year gave us some memorable dives, hopefully, this one will too. http://www.vsag.org.au/News/article/sid=210.html G'day All, Come along on at 8 pm on Thursday, 19th May 2011 to the Victorian Sub-Aqua Group (VSAG - www.vsag.org.au) meeting and hear Dr Stuart Cannon present HMAS Sydney - the Wreck, the story and the Conspiracy. HMAS Sydney was lost with all hands during the second world war as a result of a confrontation with the HSK Kormoran. It is considered Australia's worst wartime maritime disaster. Many of the German crew survived to tell the story and as a result of this various conspiracy theories started. This presentation will tell the story of HMAS Sydney, the relocation of the wreck sites and describe how the video footage and photographs were analysed together with modern computer tools to explain the events of the Sydney was lost. The presentation will include examples of the video, photographs, historical documents and well as graphical representations of the event. Finally some of the conspiracy theories will be put to bed. This is the presentation Stuart gave at the OZTech Dive Conference in March this year. For a fun and informative evening: SEE STUART CANNON AT VSAG WHEN: 8 pm Thursday, 19th May 2011 WHERE: The Maori Chief Hotel 117 Moray Street, corner of Moray and York Streets South Melbourne VIC 3205 (Melway 1D L11) You are welcome to arrive at 7 pm and have dinner with VSAG members before the VSAG meeting begins at 8 pm. http://www.vsag.org.au/News/article/sid=209.html AS we enter 2011, VSAG is pleased to announce that our new meeting venue will be at The Maori Chief Hotel, 117 Moray Street, corner of Moray and York Streets, South Melbourne VIC 3205 (Melway 1D L11, Google Maps). All members are encouraged to come to the next meeting on Thursday 20th January to celebrate and swap war stories of their dive adventures over Christmas. Hear how many Crays were caught in Beachport, how clear the water was in Adelaide, how good was the diving at Phillip Island and many others!!! If you are planning on coming to Wilsons Prom for Easter, then we need your Camp money now. Bookings will be made 1st Feb. No money, no camp site = no Easter dives for you! For any new people wishing to join VSAG please note that we are not a dive shop, nor are we a dive charter service. We do not hire gear. Members of VSAG are expected to pitch in - help launch and retrieve boats, set anchors and generally be useful whilst out diving. If you damage someones boat you will be asked to pay. Summer is just starting to warm up and all Members have an up to date dive calender in their latest edition of Fathoms magazine - check in now and go diving... Regards, Greg Richards VSAG President. http://www.vsag.org.au/News/article/sid=208.html We have several boats available during the 2 weeks of Xmas till Sunday, 9th Jan 2011. Anybody wanting to dive in and around Melbourne the main point of contact will be John Lawler. He can be contacted on 0414 922 916. The main club organised trip has divers going over to Beachport in SA for Xmas. This trip is now full, however anyone interested in meeting up with us should contact Alan Storen on 0417 017 446 The New Zealand Trip to dive the Poor Knights and the Bay of Islands is on from the 26th Feb- 8th March and has one spot left- contact Greg Richards now if you want to come. http://www.vsag.org.au/News/article/sid=207.html VSAG: Presidents Annual Report:2010 Another great year has passed for VSAG. Firstly the sinking of the Canberra, plus the “Sinking” Ball, numerous social events, a photo competition, many well attended local dives as well as Long weekends and the Annual Overseas trip. Socially, we had a great year with the highlight being the 70 plus turnout for the Christmas Party at Deb Georges Mt Martha shed. We had good numbers turn up for Lawn Bowls, Xmas In July, Imax nite, Mentone Bakery and a tour of the Maritime Museum. Many thanks, to John Lawler for organizing most of the above. On the membership front we had several new members join and we welcome them to the club and it was good to see them on a few dives and joining in the weekends away as well. Overall membership numbers remain strong. On the subject of weekends away we had our usual suspects again this year. The Queens Birthday at Boarfish was well supported except by the weather gods. Cape Jaffa on the March Long Weekend was a roaring success. The Prom at both Easter and the Cup Weekend were blessed with mostly good diving weather and had large numbers of divers turn up. We had over 35 campsites at Easter and the first day of diving saw over 20 divers taken out. The first ever, annual Kilcunda Anzac weekend although dogged by appalling weather, still managed to get a few hardy souls wet. The club ran a very successful overseas trip to Fiji during winter and more recently we had 12 members out on the MV Venus 11 diving the southern Great Barrier Reef. The backbone of our club is the common as mud garden variety “Day Dives”. This year we have had the best roll up of divers in the last 5 years. Over summer and Xmas in particular it was not uncommon to see 18-22 VSAG divers milling around the shotlines from up to 5 boats. When the weather was good, which was often, we had no trouble filling boats and even had to twist the odd boat owners arm occasionally, to meet demand. Our meetings this year continued to offer a guest speaker more often than not and the standard again was high. These topics ranged from Diving with Whale Sharks, The Port Phillip Pilots, Fiji Shark diving, Safety in Diving, Predicting the weather and Diving the Deep Wrecks of Victoria. We even had a session on Hard Hat diving. The club couldn’t exist without our boat owners assistance. A big thank you goes out to Mick Jeacle, John Lawler, John Gladding, David Geekie, Peter Briggs, Andy Mastrowicz and more recently David Kelly. Without these guys commitment we wouldn’t be the strong vibrant club we are today. Lastly, I want to thank the entire committee for organizing all the events, dives, raffles, social nites, magazines, trips away and keeping the club financial and functioning. I won’t single any one out, just to say, they do all the work, I just get to run the meetings. Without them it just wouldn’t happen. Thanks guys for a great year! Greg Richards. http://www.vsag.org.au/News/article/sid=206.html Well we are half way through winter and although water temps are down the diving just keeps on coming! Recently we have had several good days out mainly diving the Bay for scallops and exploring the wrecks and reefs off Rosebud, Williamstown & Queenscliff. A large goup of VSAGers have just returned from diving the Beqa Lagoon Shark dive in Fiji. By all accounts a fabulous trip with great diving and even better food and accomodation. As the depths of winter are fast approaching we are planning our annual Christmas in July feast as well as planning a few easy shallow dives in the upper Bay area on the Uralba and the old tyre reefs. The club has planned a diver recovery day for early October. the plan is to practice recovering an unconcious diver into our various small boats. This has been planned for some time and we hope to see all boat owners supporting us on the day. There will be a dive on offer as well after the serious stuff -as well as the usual after dive de-brief at a local watering hole! Wilsons Prom Cup weekend is fast approaching and anyone wanting a camp site with the club has to advise the Dive Captain Alan Storen asap. Cash with order is the only way to book a site! Brrrrr... gotta love this winter don't ya!! Greg Richards. http://www.vsag.org.au/News/article/sid=205.html Hi VSAG’ers, QUEENS BIRTHDAY LONG WEEKND BOARFISH LODGE….QUEENSCLIFF VSAG has booked Boarfish Lodge again for the QBLWE 11th-14th June…our hosts:Mary Malloy and Alan Beckhurst..and Mollie Cost per head: $15 per night.BYO all food and drinks Boarfish Lodge is a 6 berth bunk style accommodation with all the necessities for diver comfort: Need to bring doonas/blankets/sleeping bags and pillows etc First in gets a bunk..one booking already made so 5 left. ( There may be other suitable accommodation available near by if there is an over demand for BL) Dive gear wash down and drying….great fire every night..hot shower..TV..10 minutes from the boat ramp. Friday night for pizzas or BYO food….Saturday night at the great Victoria Tavern for a top pub meal…BBQ Sunday..BYO Weather permitting we dive Saturday..Sunday..and possibly Monday….or some sight seeing for those who are dived out on Monday..all this is flexable. Tanks filled at Dive Victoria at $10 per fill. Day trippers are very welcome….could collect from Portsea if the trip to Q too long Dive Captain: John Lawler…M: 0414 922916 E: jlawler@aapt.net.au Cheers, JL http://www.vsag.org.au/News/article/sid=204.html William Trubridge freedives THE ARCH at Blue Hole, Dahab. See www.youtube.com/watch?...eature=fvw You don't need SCUBA if you can do this! http://www.vsag.org.au/News/article/sid=203.html