May 2022 Jetty Dive Debrief
Welcome to the May 2022 Jetty Dive Debrief! This is our newest addition to the blog (and email newsletters… read on to find out more about that if you’re interested!) the “debrief”. Here we are going to let you know how the water has been, what the season showed us, any interesting or noteworthy details, and what we’ve achieved as a shop!
In May we launched our brand new website, created by local small business Coast Studios. We are in love!
Seasonal Marine Life Activity:
Leopard Sharks hung around a little bit longer than we have witnessed in previous years, with the last sighting on Monday the 16th of May. Cya next year, Leopards!
Whale season is upon us, and the first whale Jetty Dive spotted was on a dive trip on the 30th of April (Technically not in “May” but needed to be included!)
There was a school of around 6 Grey Nurse Sharks in early May, which shows us the Grey Nurse are going to be hanging around in higher numbers soon!
We had some rebreather divers spot a Harlequin Shrimp which has only been sighted before by Instructor Nathan twice in his time at Jetty Dive (not in the dive report as only found out the next day from the divers who got photos). We also spotted a Blue Ring Octopus on the 28th, and most notably a Bull Shark on the 25th of May!
Instructor Lindsay managed to help out a turtle with a 20cm lure hooked into both his back flipper and shell on the 25th.
We heard Whales singing under the water towards the end of the month, which is always a lovely experience for our divers.
Certifications
PADI Open Water Divers
Congratulations to our newly certified PADI Open Water Divers:
Josh, Bas, Ben, Brooke, Indi, Emma, Scott, Mimi, Leilani, Tom, Marianne, Caroline, Emily, Jane, Dave, and James! Good work everybody, and welcome to the world of diving!
PADI Advanced Open Water Divers
Our newest PADI Advanced Open Water Divers:
Jimmy, and Euan. Congratulations!
Conditions
Visibility
Starting May out, we had 10-18m vis on the 6th, carrying over from our lovely end of April. On the 7th this improved to 15-20m, which held up at a solid 20m for the 8th of May. On the 9th we peaked at a gorgeous 25m. This dropped to 5-10m for the 15th through 18th of May, improving slightly to 10-15m for the 25th and 26th of May. On the 28th of May we had a drop, with visibility sitting at 8-10m, and the 29th at 5-8m.
Temperature
Temperature remained 23°c up until the 15th when it dropped to 22°c. It has fluctuated between 22°c and 21°c throughout the remainder of the month. We are heading towards the colder months!
Sustainability and the environment
This section we are dedicating to showing what steps we are taking to reduce our environmental impact. It might include incentives we have implemented or tried through the month, or programs we have participated in. We intend to expand upon our conservation efforts page with everything we have implemented in store – as we are doing much more than this page shows!
This month we received our new dive log/detail slates. These slates are plastic boards which we can write all the details our divers need on the boats (ie. depth, time of dive, time in, time out, air pressure start/end) and keep digital record of this – without using a piece of paper for each trip. It also has a spot for our dive-brief sign off that we require prior to getting on the boat – which saves another sheet of paper. Calculated off of last years numbers, we are likely to save over 400 pieces of paper this year from this change. That’s almost 1 ream of paper saved. It may seem small – but these small green steps are what make the difference.
Jetty Dive Center also joined the Groundswell program with Take3fortheSea. Keeping the environment clean and healthy is super important to all of us who live and work in the Coffs Coast. We’ve teamed up with Take3fortheSea and joined the NSW Ground Swell program to help keep Coffs Harbour litter-free! In this program we are learning about implementing strategies to reduce the impact of both the business and our visitors on our environment. We will continue updating with our progress.
Tara attended the “Sustainability is Possible – Small Green Steps” event as a part of “Coffs Coast Eco Month” to add to our repertoire of environmental initiatives.
Photo of the month!
From the Blog!
This month, we got into blogging 😂. It has been our intention for a while, and this month I was able to put it into place! Here’s a brief summary of this month’s blogs.
Win Big By Entering Jetty Dive’s Mega-May Photo Competition-
If you dived with us in May and got some of these photos, there is still time to enter! Take a look.
How Have The 2022 Floods Impacted Clarity And Visibility?
We take a deep-dive (ha ha) into how the floods of early 2022 affected us and the water. Read here
The Month Ahead!
We are steaming straight into whale season! Bookings are open for Whale Watching, you can take a look at our Whale Watching page here.
Dine and Discover vouchers expire on the 30th of June, so if you’re looking for somewhere to use them up we take them for all experiences! We will have to do this in person or over the phone, as the Discover voucher’s codes refresh every 10 minutes. Contact us for more information.
Whale Swimming is getting closer… but we still haven’t opened up bookings. We like to be sure about the migration patterns before doing so. If you want to be notified when the bookings are open, pop in your email adress here and you’ll be one of the first to know.
Lindsay and Tara will be heading to Fiji in June for our Fiji Shark Dive Trip. Keep an eye out for photos and stories of their time in Beqa Lagoon.
Newsletter!
I’m planning on creating a monthly newsletter with updates similar to this blog post. Some of our favorite customer pictures, new product releases or favorite products. If you want to hear from us (we wont spam you, I promise!) sign up here, and click “Newsletter”.
If you have anything you would like to hear about in this debrief, or in our newsletter, or even any suggestions for another name for this debrief, please contact us and let us know!
Thanks for reading the May 2022 Jetty Dive Debrief! We appreciate you 🙂
About the Author
Tara is Jetty Dive’s Office Manager and IT Lady, Social Media Queen, Crazy-Fish-Lady, and as she likes to say – “Self-Appointed CEO”. You’ll find her sitting at her desk surrounded in pink, but happiest either on or under the water.
