a pretty successful day on the water. got away a little late i thought, but Hayley put me straight and told me that the time of the departure had been changed.

the divers didn't get to see any grey nurse sharks in the nursery, but vis was pretty bad, and there's a fair chance that they bugged out when they heard the divers coming but couldn't see them.

we had a pretty good group on, most had some experience and Shaun, the divemaster, had it all under control. a few divers popped up a little far from the boat, but they weren't fazed and swam back.

the James Craig was in the bay, along with the HMAS Canberra. that's one big grey boat. we watched the landing craft (i think) come out of the garage doodad at the back and head over to HMAS Cresswell during the surface interval, while the James Craig put to sea, large square sails not very full in the light southerly airs, the hull disappearing and reappearing in between the crests of the southerly swell.

as Clive and i rowed back from putting the boats away, after we'd returned, offloaded and put the dive boats back on the moorings, i casually explained to him that i'd nearly fallen in while sorting out the mooring lines. as i was moving the lines from one side of the boat to the other, i managed to snag the leg of one of the outboards. when i trimmed up the motors so they'd be out of the water, the ladder moved,  as the ladder was also snagged. so i pushed up the ladder, trimmed up the motors to free the line, then i trod on the wrong bit of the ladder, which caused the ladder to tilt back towards the water and try to jettison me into the water.

yelling and giggling i grabbed onto and clung to the outboard. fortunately Clive wasn't watching. he was giggling enough just with me telling him the story, without him seeing it first hand, and i'm not a great joke teller, well apart from the "farm noises" joke.

so i've managed to extricate myself from the outboard and back onto the boat, then finish packing up, clumsiness not done for the day it's time to get onto the tender and row over to the "patiently" waiting Clive on Avalon. i get stuck between the ladder and the boat. one foot on the tender, one on the boat, and i can't do the splits... after more cursing and giggling i manage to get on the tender, fetch Clive, and then we rowed back to the wharf, well mostly rowed, Clive pushed a bit as i went over the sandbank and he felt it was quicker to be a 1 Clive-power outboard for a bit.

i'm not much of a story teller, but Clive had a good laugh at my expense, with me just telling him about this afterwards. oh well, it was his turn, last week we had a giggle at him.

got to have a sense of humour on this job, everyone screws up, there's always mistakes, it's how you deal with them.

pretty good day to be on the water