This is the dive I have been looking forward to doing since my Pro-Dive trip to the Great Barrier Reed in Cairns. As I mentioned before, I was rather disappointed with the diving on the Great Barrier Reef, sure I had some good dives, but I think my expectations were too high. I was expecting 30+ meters visibility with the most vibrant corals and a massive variety of marine life, and it just didn’t live up to my expectations.
The SS Yongala on the other hand came with very high recommendation from people who have dived it. It is also regarded as one of the top with the most vibrant corals and a massive variety of marine life, and it just didn’t live up to my expectations.
The SS Yongala on the other hand came with very high recommendation from people who have dived it. It is also regarded as one of the top 5 wrecks in the world, so again my expectations were high... even though I did try to keep them down!
I was picked up on time, at 5:45am and my driver and I travelled a couple of hours back up North to Ayr. When I arrived I went through the standard PADI disclaimer forms (if I die, I can’t sue them), got my kit ready and sat down for the briefing. The kit could have been a bit newer, the BCDs did look a little worn, but they were solid working and any concerns were purely superficial. I guess I still like my things to look brand new!!
I was happy with the guys at the dive centre. It was a good briefing, with a high consideration to safety.
We jumped into the Jeep and made our way to the beach to catch our boat out. Once onboard it was a 30 minute ride to the dive site. The conditions were still pretty choppy, but apparently not as bad as the day before.
We arrived at the dive site and kitted up for our first dive of the day, we were to make 2 dives. For the first dive we followed a guide around the hull and back over the top. As soon as we descended down to the buoy line to 26meters we saw a Bull Shark. This was the biggest shark that I have seen so far and it looked pretty impressive, maybe 2.5 meters long and it had a fatter body than the reef sharks I have seen so far. I didn’t realise till after the dive that most reports of shark attacks are actually by Bull Sharks!
Ok... that is one to remember next time!!! Fortunately he had no interest in us and swam off almost as soon as we got there.
Once down at the wreck I was instantly impressed. Visibility was still only about 10- 15meters, but on a wreck I like this, it makes the whole thing feel more eerie.
We were told that the wreck was an old English passenger and cargo liner, built by the same company that built the Titanic! I can’t remember the date it went down, but it had 122 people on board making a routine journey down the East Coast of Australia when it ran into a Force 5 Cyclone (a bad one). No-one really knows what happened, but they think that it all happened very fast. They think that one of the doors of the cargo hold was blown off and waves up to 8 meters high started to fill the cargo hold up. No life boats were launched, which is why they think it sank very quickly. There were 70ish people found in the cargo hold, where it is believed they were sent to bail out water, to no avail.
Every person on the ship, all 122 of them died. There was even a champion race horse on board that was later found dead, washed up on shore. Since there are still bodies in the wreck it is considered a grave site, and thus divers are not allowed to penetrate the wreck, that means, we are not allowed inside, only to look through the holes at the inside.
Another reason is that the air that divers breath out creates air pockets and the oxygen in those air pockets speed up the rusting of the ship, which is not a good thing. The reason the marine life is so good here, is that it is the only reef (an artificial one) for miles, so all the fish stay around this confined space.
So, back on the dive, we swam along the hull of the ship, where you can see into the cargo holds and look at some of the interior rooms, a couple of toilets, a bath and a whole bunch of fish. We saw some pretty cool marine life down there from a beautiful Turtle to a whole load of Mauri Wrasse (big fellas), big Mooray Eels, Moorish Idols, Giant Travelly, Cod, Puffer Fish, Giant Barracuda’s and a whole lot more.
The corals were beautiful as well. More like I was expecting on the Great Barrier Reef. I was pleasantly surprised.
After about 35 minutes some of the group were low on air and had to go you for their 2 safety stops. This dive centre wanted us to perform a 2 minute safety stop at 10 meters and then a 3 minute stop at 5 meters (the standard). No worries, the safer the better.
I carried on for another 15 minutes with my buddies as we had enough air left until they were low on air, then we went up for our safety stops and final ascent.
On the boat everyone seemed impressed with the first dive. Not everyone got to see the Bull Shark, I guess that was my prize for being first down and seeing it before it got scared off by all these weird divers in his back yard!
We had some water, cake, crackers and fruit and sat around for our 1 hour surface interval before getting back in the water for our second dive. I found the people in the group to be a bit boring, but I was happy to sit back and relax.
The second dive was much the same as the first, still very impressive, with the added benefit of a Bull Ray. First a Bull Shark, now a Bull Ray! This was a big guy, maybe 4 meters across and a bit uglier than the Eagle Ray I saw in Malaysia, but still a beautiful creature. I was only able to dive for about 35 minutes this time as my Dive Computer was telling me that I was approaching my No Decompression Limits (basically, time to go up before you get too much Nitrogen in your body). I was gutted a I still had over half my air left, but safety comes first. Funnily enough other people were going up at the same time because they were getting low on air!!
The boat took us back to shore and we were prepared a rather good Aussie BBQ for lunch. I arranged for the driver to take me back to Airlie a bit earlier than normal so that I could get on the same Premier bus as Nicole down to Hervey Bay. It was a 12 hour bus journey, and not very pleasant. I just made it back with minutes to spare (in fact, I and the bus were both a bit late!) and managed to pay the driver and get on.
I sat next to Nicole for the first few hours, watching a couple of movies, Finding Nemo was very apt for the day! We tried to sleep, but 2 people to a seat is very uncomfortable, so when another seat became available half way down I jumped on it and slept as much as possible for the rest of the Journey.