418 Dive Log Australasia JUNE 2026.pdf

Fur seal- one of our favourite sea creatures to dive with. Ebb @seathroughthelensphotography

NSW Biodiversity Conservation Act, ensuring the welfare of the animals always comes first. Rather, we observe their movements and breathing patterns, position ourselves carefully, shut the engines down, and wait. What happens next is entirely on the whale’s terms. When a curious humpback decides it wants to investigate, the experience is almost impossible to describe. Sometimes they linger beneath swimmers in water deeper than 100 metres, suspended effortlessly in the deep blue. Staring down into that vast ocean makes you feel incredibly small and insignificant — yet somehow, at the same time, everything suddenly makes sense. The noise of daily life disappears. Problems, stress, and worries dissolve into the blue around you. There is only the sound of your breathing, the open ocean, and the presence of an animal so enormous and intelligent that it completely shifts your perspective for a moment.

For many guests, that first close encounter with a whale becomes genuinely life changing, one of those rare experiences that stays with you forever. Yet whale season in Jervis Bay brings more than Humpbacks. At the very same time the whales are moving through the bay, Australian and New Zealand fur seals gather around the dramatic rock island known as the Drum and Drumsticks. Unlike whales, seals possess an endless curiosity. They barrel-roll through bubbles, tug gently at fins, and dart around divers with impossible agility. Watching them underwater is like watching the ocean’s version of dogs - playful, mischievous, and completely captivating. For years, many of our Freedivers asked the same question after swimming with the seals:

The newly introduced scuba catamaran, the Woebe-Two Ebb @seathroughthelensphotography

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DIVE LOG Australasia #418 - June’ 26

www.divelog.net.au