Underwater at Shelly Beach

I recently started diving again. So in between races, I decided to do an underwater photography course with my local dive shop Dive Centre Manly. They got on board the talented Pete McGee to run the course. Pete put the course together, which went from photography fundamentals and touched on the more advanced topics of strobes.

Whilst I knew the fundamentals it is always good to have such things reinforced and explained from a different viewpoint I believe. The lessons on strobes underwater were invaluable to me though as strobe placement underwater is quite different to how I would use strobes on dry land.

I missed the first dives due to being ill but Pete kindly let me do the dive section at a later date. While the water quality was rather poor with lots of sediment floating around making visibility limited the dives themselves were fantastic. the 2nd dive was my longest dive to date being 98 minutes underwater. What bliss!!!! Nudibranchs, Wobbegong sharks, Giant cuttlefish, the big Blue gropers and even a Banded Coral Shrimp were all out to play.

If you’ve got an interest in learning about underwater photography I’d highly recommend this course with Pete. Since it’s not a PADI course, Pete can be more flexible with what he teaches and can, to a degree, tailor the course to your skill level.