Clifton Gardens Archives - Baha Adventures

13Dec 2025 by Warren Prior No Comments

Guiding at Clifton Gardens

Diving

Sadly I wasn't able to guide as often as I would have liked this year. Work was chaotic, the kids schedules seemed to have exploded, and I had other projects I was working on in my free time, many of which involved home maintenance. So getting back into the water in December was amazing. As is always the case, we met at Clifton Gardens for a 7:45 dive brief. There were a few little dramas, one of which was the valve on my tank failing while I was setting up my gear. Thankfully, I had a spare tank with me, and the other issues were easily resolved. So by 8:30 we were wading into the water ready to go. Sunday's group at Clifton Gardens The water was a warm 21…

01Sep 2024 by Warren Prior No Comments

First Dive Back From a Ruptured Achilles

Diving

After an incredibly long 111 days, my leg finally felt good enough to get back into the water. Was it because I was ready? Or was it because I needed to check my leg before heading to Fiji? A little from column A, and a little from column B, I guess. I opted for Clifton Gardens since I had a few friends who were diving there. And, as an added bonus, one of then was kind enough to lend me a set of split fins, which were in theory easier to kick than my Apeks RK3s. The dive itself was spectacular! It may have been that I'd been out of the water for almost half a year. Or it may have been the show the critters put on. But I…

19Aug 2023 by Warren Prior No Comments

Blue-ringed Octopus at Clifton Gardens

Diving

Saturday morning got off to an early start as I headed down to Clifton Gardens to lead one of Frog Dive's shore dives. It was a beautiful morning, with an orange glow coming off the sun, not a cloud in the sky, and absolutely no wind to speak of. The sea was dead flat, and judging from the surface, visibility looked good for Clifton Gardens. I was expecting 7 divers, but the group grew to 9 when the shop's boat dive was cancelled due to poor conditions. Thankfully Cec had offered to help out, and arrived shortly after me. The group group geared up in the parking lot, and once everyone was ready, I gave the dive briefing around one of the many tables scattered around the field. I opted…

02Jun 2023 by Warren Prior No Comments

Underwater Statues at Chowder Bay

Diving

Clifton Gardens (also known as Chowder Bay) is a polarising dive site located in Sydney Harbour. Talking to divers, they tend to either love it, or hate it. Regardless, all Sydney-based divers have dived it at least one (well, almost all). So why is it so polarising? Well, for a variety of reasons. To get the negatives out of the way first: visibility is generally poor (especially if your buoyancy is poor and you kick up the bottom), there's definite friction between the fishermen and divers, and it can be dirty due to people throwing all sorts of objects off the wharf. Another reason people may not enjoy it is that you don't see much if you move too quickly. On the plus side, if you have good buoyancy and…

17Dec 2022 by Warren Prior No Comments

Taking Someone For Their First Dive

Diving

The other day I had the privilege of taking someone on their first ever dive after completing their open water training. We opted to head down to Clifton Gardens as they'd done one of their training dives there, and had absolutely loved the site. We arrived arrived at Clifton Gardens just after 3pm and got straight down to kitting up. It was surprisingly quiet for a warm summer's afternoon, but I certainly wasn't complaining. Walking along the wharf, the water looked decently clear from the surface, which was more good news for us. We did a giant stride off the wharf, and did a quick buoyancy check before descending to the bottom. Being with a first timer, we spent the first couple of minutes getting comfortable, and then headed off…

05Jun 2022 by Warren Prior No Comments

Underwater Cleanup at Clifton Gardens

Diving, Event

One of the things I've learned (or finally got to witness) as a diver is that a large percentage of our waste ends up in our oceans, which damages both the fauna and flora. However, despite how large this problem is, even the smallest of gestures can help. If not us, then who? So on Sunday morning I headed down to Chowder Bay where I met up with the Frog Dive crew to clean up the area under the Clifton Gardens wharf. Clifton Gardens is one of New South Wales premiere muck diving sites, with incredible macro photography on offer for those willing to put their eyes to the test. We split up into buddy pairs, and allocated areas to clean. My buddy and I focused on the area inside…

29Dec 2021 by Warren Prior No Comments

December Diving at Clifton Gardens

Diving

December was a dive heavy month for us. Nick (and family) travelled down from Brisbane, which meant a week of near daily diving as we explored Sydney's plethora of shore based dive sites. And as with many Sydney divers, their journey began at Clifton Gardens. Clifton Gardens from the air Looking down on the Clifton Gardens dive site Nick and I made a last minute decision to do a night dive at Clifton Gardens on Christmas day. We arrived at around 7pm, and were immediately disappointed by the amount of rubbish left lying around from the Christmas day celebrations. After making a few weak excuses, and ensuring Nick things weren’t normally like this, we geared up and headed down to the water. We dropped below the surface at last light…

31Oct 2021 by Warren Prior No Comments

A Spooky Halloween Night Dive at Clifton Gardens

Diving

Having never done a night dive, Halloween seemed like a great excuse to get into the water under the cloak of darkness. I met the Frog Dive crew at Clifton Gardens where we enjoyed a few tasty treats and did a little pumpkin carving. It's an amazing group, and I'd highly recommend joining a few of their outings if you can. As the sun started to set we kitted up, had the dive briefing, and checked our torches. I was concerned the water was going to be chilly, but I was pleasantly surprised as it was a comfortable 20°C. We opted to do a walk in, in order to minimise any impact on the few fisherman out on the jetty. And then, as the sun slipped below the horizon, so…

13Mar 2021 by Warren Prior No Comments

Half of my Advanced Open Water

Diving

Despite being new to diving, I was itching to get back into the water to do my Advanced Open Water certification. Why? Well, predominantly to open up a wide variety of exciting new dive sites, especially for our Great Keppel Island holiday in July (fingers crossed it doesn't get cancelled due to Covid). I spent the week preceding the course reading over the course material, and taking the required exam. This escalated the day before the course, when I made a last minute decision to tack on a nitrox certification, which required some additional reading and another exam. I was surprised by just how little additional information there was in the Advanced Open Water training. The course consisted of 2 required modules, Deep Diving and Underwater Navigation, as well as…

22Dec 2020 by Warren Prior No Comments

Getting My Open Water Diver Certification

Diving

My life has always include the ocean. Growing up, our family holidays were spent surfing, snorkelling, and fishing at Cape St. Francis (South Africa). And when we weren't holidaying there, we were often rock fishing in the Transkei. I have many a fond memory of free-diving for abalone with my father in the cool Atlantic waters of Cape Town, before we moved to Durban. I then got into fly fishing, and spent many a year targeting trevally (and multiple other game species) in the salty water of Cape Vidal. And then, after arriving in Australia, one of my first purchases was a Hobie kayak to get me out onto Sydney Harbour. I just can't seem to escape it. So when an excuse (finally) landed on my doorstep (in the form…

Tag: Clifton Gardens