Tuggerah 21-03-09

March 21, 2009. We had a great dive last week on the Tuggerah so with flat seas again we headed there again. Viz looked good at the surface but further down it became quite deep with a thick layer of material in the water. We had anchored on the front starboard side of the wreck, so securing the anchor we headed back to the boiler area. No sunfish this time and also no wobbies. The viz on the wreck was quite good though. At the 20 min mark we commenced returning to the anchor. Wayne had left the lift bag on the boat so was trying to use his safety sausage. The opening in the bottom was not allowing air in so we wasted precious minutes and air before we could get any air into it. There's a lesson here about maintaining and checking safety equipment. Even full the sausage did not have enough lift to raise the anchor. I did not think to use my smb, tucked neatly into my backplate. We had extended to cross over so it was on the anchor, so we simply disconnected it and ascended up that line. We did all out deep stops finishing at 3m. During our stops Wayne had noted that I had a double clip attached to the rear D clip on my backplate but no spool. Somehow the spool had come off the clip and the line had also come off the clip. So it's on the bottom somewhere near the Tuggerah. I will secure it somewhere else from now on.