Cabbage Tree BayCABBAGE TREE BAY

Cabbage Tree Bay Consultative Group represents all the stakeholders (surfers, divers, spearfishermen, fishermen, precinct groups, marine biologists) who have been working towards the conservation of this unique area.

Cabbage Tree Bay became part of the National Estate when Manly Beach was put on the Heritage List.

For a number of years, local residents lobbied Council about Cabbage Tree Bay. In August 1994, Council divided to establish a snorkel park, with objectives including protection of biodiversity, promotion of environmentally passive recreation and encouragement of environmental education and awareness.

The author of "Australian Seashores", Isobel Bennett, told Council that "Shelley Beach lies within minutes of one of the largest cities in the Southern Hemisphere and this fact makes its natural features, its communities of animals and plants, a unique area not to be found anywhere else in the world so close to dense population."

Representatives from various interest groups were invited to attend a full day workshop with Ed Hegerl from the Australian Marine Conservation Group and put forward their group's issues and concerns. This group included divers, spearfishermen, commercial and recreational fishermen, marine biologists and residents. The most significant issues identified were:

The group is performing a valuable role and continues to hold regular meetings that address these issues. The area of concern has been defined as the water and submerged lands enclosed on the landward side of a line running between Manly Point (South Steyne) and Fairy Bower Headland.

Its mission statement is "to protect and enhance the marine environment of Cabbage Tree Bay for safe and educational use". The group believes it is essential to have a scientific study done to establish what is there. This information can then be used for preparing a plan of management, educational materials and interpretative signage.

The International PADI AWARE (Aquatic World Awareness, Responsibility and Education) Foundation, Dive Centre Manly and the Departmnent of Land and Water Conservation granted $5000 in early 1997 to this group to fund research into the marine environment of the bay. Ideally the area would be maintained as a 'nursery' for local diver education, as well as being considered a passive-use park where divers can explore, but not kill anything.
 

Report: DIVER WANTS BEACH AS UNDERWATER PARK

 If Terry Cummins has his way, Shelly Beach at Manly will become a regional underwater park where scuba divers go for training or recreation - "Just to look, leaving behind nothing but footprints and bubbles and only taking photos."

The chief executive officer of the Chatswood-based PADI Australia (the Professional Association of Diving Instructors), is funding an ongoing grant so a marine biologist can assess the area for an underwater sanctuary.

"We are looking at the establishment of a passive-use park, where divers can explore, but not kill anything," he said. "Ideally, the area would be maintained as a "nursery for local diver education, a training ground."

Public access to the beach would be unaffected under the plan.

Mr Cummins, a family man from Lindfield, holds the licence to administer the association's affairs in Australia and the South Pacific. His association wiith PADI began when he started a diver training course from the garage of his home nearly 30 years ago.

PADI sets the standards for the scuba industry and produces educational material to train divers. It has trained about 400,000 divers in Australia since 1981.

The group established Project AWARE- Aquatic World Awareness, Responsibility and Education - a program hailed by envirinmentalist around the world.

The Shelly Beach project is close to the former geography teacher's heart. Back in 1969, having been given a spear gun by his builder father for his 15th birthday, he made his first tentative dive into the Shelly shallows.

"I wouldn't be seen dead with a spear gun today; they were different times when we didn't understand anything about the environment. But the gun got me underwater where I soon started donging fish on the head like everyone else.

"I fell in love with this mysterious wondrous world and is was a natural progression to scuba diving, where I began teaching tyros as president of the University of NSW Underwater Club. Now my passion is underwater conservation."

"It's certanly given me the opportunity to travel that I never had as a teacher at Epping Boys' High Schoool," he said, laughing.

But his most amazing underwater experience took place off Lord How Island a few years ago.

"A dolphin had just given birth to a calf and brought it oover to show our group hanging on a decompression line at 80 feet. The mammal related to us. The baby was just minutes old and mum helped it to the surface, teaching it how to breathe before showing it off proudly to us. I watched for 15 minutes, an absolutely exhilarating experience."

His closest brush with death - literally from a few metres away - also took place in Australian waters, this time off far north Queensland.

"We were filming an ocean whaler shark feeding frenzy without a cage and some of those voracious sharks were almost three metres long and totally fearless. It got very exciting at close range, to say the least, but luckily we all survived in one piece."

In his relentless search for new experiences, Mr Cummins once dived among giant saltwater crocodiles in the Top End.

"They're just unbelievable under the surface. They're dinosaurs with a mystique all their own, so old and slow-moving, malevolent and interesting to see, though not as graceful as sharks."

He draws the line at swimming with great white sharks... "too big and unpredictable and we look too much like their prey - seals. Unfortunately they don't send telegrams warning they're going to bite you in half."

However, Mr Cummins stressed that diving was not dangerous. Statistics showed one was far more likely to be injured venturing across the Pacific Highway than swimming down to the graveyards of wrecks off Long Reef, some of Sydney's most popular diving locations.

PADI is involved in the plans to sink a wreck off Sydney to establish un underwater tourist industry for shallow-water divers.
 

PADI TAKES THE PLUNGE

 About half of those who have done a scuba-diving course in Sydney would have done it at Shelly Beach, Cabbage Tree Bay, Manly, according to PADI.

The International PADI AWARE (Aquatic World Awareness, Responsibility and Education) Foundation, Dive Centre Manly and Departement of Land and Water Conservation have just granted $5,000 to the Cabbage Tree Bay Counsultative Group to fund research into the marine environment of the bay.

The research, by the University of Sydney, is intended to assist a management plan for the bay.

It has been organised by the Cabbage Tree Bay group, wich includes spearfisherman, commercial and recreational fishermen, the Surfrider Foundation, divers, marine biologists, local residents, students and the Manly Environment Centre director Judy Reizes.

"There was a lot of angst about the conflict of uses," she said.

The New South Wales Department of Environmental and Climate Change has called for public submissions on the management of Cabbage Tree Bay. It guarantees the ban on recreational and commercial fishing will not be lifted.