2001 SPD Photo Competition Results

South Pacific Divers Club was formed about 1958 and held its first meeting in the backyard garage of Denis Robinson at Beverly Hills. Denis was its first president and held that position for a number of years until he left Sydney to take up residents in Western Australia. 

During the first few years of the club there were many exploratory, exciting and sometimes dangerous dives that took place among its young members. These were the days that everything was new and exciting and in many situations we dived where no one had been before. We were one of the early divers to explored the many sink holes at Mt Gambier in South Australia including Piccaninnie Ponds, The Shaft and The Blue Lake and others. Those days there were no permits to dive these areas, you just explored as many sink holes and caves as possible without restrictions everything was free and easy. We mapped many new dive sites at that time along the Southern New South Wales Coastline. Jumped into the Blow Hole at Kiama many Sunday mornings creating excitement among spectators until the police came and threatened us with arrest if we continued. Rafted down the Shoalhaven river when it was in flood, that was exciting. Tested scuba diving equipment, taught new members how to dive, this was before instructor agencies were formed in Australia. Some of our members discovered Shiprock Dive site whilst others commenced deep diving to eventually set an unofficial deep diving record at The Peaks that lie some kilometres off Maroubra Beach. When seas were rough we did a lot of dry caveing. We were involved in locating a cannon and anchor from the shipwreck of the Clipper Dunbar that lies south of Sydney Heads.  Many of the early members were expert photographers, they made their own underwater camera housings and were leaders in submitting photos and articles for the early Australian Skindivers Magazine. Denis Robinson and myself became movie stringers for a Sydney TV station making a number of short underwater films for "Sunday Afternoon News."  As time past the early members slowly left the club, new people entered and it changed from the times of free and easy diving to more controlled types of activities. Just before Denis Robinson left for Western Australia he asked me to organize a small film festival, we named it New South Wales Underwater Film Festival. This became the forerunner to The Australian Underwater Photographer of the Year that commenced in 1980 and has run through two decades to become one of the major events on the Australian diving calendar.

Today South Pacific Divers Club is a lot different from its early days. The club is independent from any dive shop or dive organization, it is run by a committee of five, elected once a year by its members. The club conducts local dives twice a month along with social activities and dives away weekends to locations such as Jervis Bay, Terrigal, Foster and Seal Rocks, Ulladulla, wrecks at Eden, seals at Montague Island, Nelson Bay, local night dives and day charter boats dives as well as overseas scuba diving trips.

Whilst the club promotes safe diving its members are free to dive the way the wish. However its newly certified members are buddied with more experienced club member. Morning shore dives are generally followed by a BBQ and get together. Boat outings, particularly wreck diving, are for the more experienced members. Age among club members range from 20 to 50 years and over, so you can see there is an age group for just about everyone. Experiences among members range from Open Water Divers through to Instructors. Among its many members South Pacific Divers Club has a cross section of active divers, some enjoy shipwreck diving, others underwater photographers, new divers would rather dive on shallow reef sponge gardens, others are interested in marine biology, and many prefer to dive from charter boats.   

If you want to meet other divers and enjoy the wonderful sport of scuba diving, mix social with people of the same interest as yourself, go away on weekend outings or day diving trips, perhaps overseas diving, then join SOUTH PACIFIC DIVERS CLUB Inc. Just fill in the application form on this web site. 

Tom Byron

South Pacific Divers meet every third Monday of the month at 8 o'clock at Bankstown District Sports Club, 8 Greenfield Parade Bankstown. All correspondence should be sent to South Pacific Divers Club Inc PO Box 823, Bankstown  Sydney  NSW  2200. 

Click Here for our South Pacific Divers Club Membership form:

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