2/09/2002

On the Rest of Australia leg of our Round the World trip, we passed through Darwin in the Northern territories where we did a bit of diving. Read on...

Diving Darwin, Northern Territories

We had heard that a friend of ours (Jason P of UKRS fame) was coming to Darwin and had sorted out some diving so we pestered him for the info and went off to chat with Cullen Dive Centre to see what they had to offer.

Turns out Darwin has some pretty crazy tidal action with a 7m range being quite common. This means that diving is only possible on neap tides or about twice a month. We were lucky to have stumbled into the shop at the start of one of these neap periods. In fact it promised to be incredibly slack for most of the day we wanted to dive. Consequently, we booked with Cullen to dive the US Army Transport vessel Meigs.

USAT Meigs

USAT Meigs was loaded with armament, bombs, rifles, trucks and bren gun carriers and at berth in Darwin Harbour when the Japanese attacked on 19th Feb 1942. Meigs was the largest vessel present and consequently drew the most fire. She sank with the loss of two lives. Meigs is 135m by 12m, 11358 tonnes and sits on a silty bed in 19m. She is now only 2m proud of the sea bed after being salvaged in 1960 by the Japanese [oddly].

Main features of the dive are a single intact bren gun carrier in the bows, trucks with just the tops visible above the silt, small arms and ammunition and many railway supplies including rails and sleepers. From the perspective of UK divers, this wreck is remarkably similar to a lot of stuff around our coast. Soft corals are growing on the heavily encrusted remains. Silt is a major feature as this is a harbour. Apparently on Spring tides it's even worse due to the river outflow.

We did two dives on the USAT Meigs as follows;

We dived with Cullen Bay Dive who are a PADI 5* shop and TDI training agency. We were very well received and found everyone very professional and friendly. We were also allowed to do our own thing. Our only gripe [there has to be one] was that at A$150 for two air dives in a nearby harbour location, we shouldn't have had to wash and put away the hire kit afterwards.

Go back to the Rest of Australia Report.

Diving Cairns, Queensland

Great Barrier Reef

Now, we're not really reef and coral people but it would be unseemly to come to Cairns and not dive the Great Barrier Reef. After some investigation and an abortive attempt to get on Taka out of Cairns, we booked with Quicksilver aboard their luxury catamaran Diversity out of Port Douglas. The trip took in Osprey Reef which is not part of the GBR and is 300km out in the Coral Sea. It also included Cod Hole in addition to the main outer barrier reef.

Diversity is a catamaran and those who've been on one will know that they have a very odd motion in the water - it can be very harsh and bumpy. Couple this with the fact that the first dive site is 300km out into the Pacific and that this boat does 19 knots and you have a pretty sleepless first night! Another downside of a cat is that there's no main hull to put cabins in so space is at a premium.

We did 14 dives from Diversity, as follows;

4 dives a day is normal for a liveaboard but quite intense in anyone's book. It would have been nice to use nitrox but it's not available on this boat. We did comment that it certainly should be available (and included in the price maybe!). Considering it would take a chopper 2.5 hours even to get out to Osprey it's not too much to ask we don't think.

So what did we make of all these dives on the "Great" Barrier Reef? Given we're wreck divers and not particularly coral crazy, it was OK. The visibility was excellent - up to 50m. This is made out to be a good thing, especially at Osprey Reef. However, great vis is not synonymous with large creatures, which is the main reason to trek 300km out to sea. So, we don't feel it's worth going all the way out to Osprey - you loose a night's sleep and it puts the price of the trip up considerably. So what if the reef wall plummets to 1200m depth? There's a few white tipped reef sharks and that's about it. As it's outside the Marine Park, we did get to do shark feeding which was interesting but a bit of a novelty. Basically a load of dead fish on a string were released into the middle of a bunch of reef sharks. Predictably, they went crazy for 30 sec until the whole apparatus had been devoured and we were immersed in a cloud of dead fish parts and swirling sharks. Good eh?

Cod Hole was fun. Large Potato Cod (large is about 1.5m - not bad for a fish) come up to investigate divers. Actually, they come to get fed, but they seem to like being stroked and swimming between your legs. They tend to come up behind the unsuspecting diver and give him a nudge presumably looking for food. Being jostled by a fish makes a change from being kicked by an Italian underwater photographer.

The Barrier Reef itself is more what we'd expected - 30 odd metres to the sand, with all the customary bottom dwellers in attendance. The reef is in pretty good condition (the global bleaching phenomenon has not affected this part of the World too much). There's a whole bunch of colourful fish and that's about it! If you've dived the Red Sea, you've seen it all already, so don't go half way round the World just for this. However, if you're in the area, it's worth a look. No wrecks though!

We dived with Quicksilver who are based in Port Douglas. They run many different boats, mostly day trips out to permanently moored pontoons on the reef. Whilst this is OK for new divers or snorklers, if you want to see better quality reef, you need to go further and for longer. Diversity is Quicksilver's first foray into liveaboards and a fine effort it is too. There's a couple of teething problems to iron out such as how to assemble the beds, but it's an excellent boat and an excellent trip. They don't seem to be overly busy (we had 7 divers out of a possible 12) but this will surely change as word gets around.

A special mention must go to chef Mark who did us all proud and produced amazing food, including the most awesome puddings. Catering can make or break a liveaboard trip and Mark certainly contributed to our enjoyment of this one. All in all, we'd recommend the 4 night liveaboard trip on this boat although it is a little pricey for the level of service offered (compared with the benchmark Aggressor fleet that is). Presumably this will improve as they get used to the liveaboard game. If you're in the area and are prepared to risk it, it is possible to get standby rates at the last minute which can be considerably cheaper.

You can e-mail Quicksilver at diversity@quicksilverdive.com.a u

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Diving Townsville, Queensland

The Yongala

We'd come to Townsville in Queensland especially to dive the Yongala and had booked via e-mail with Adrenalin Dive. Arriving into town, we had a distinct feeling that we would not be diving as most of the palm trees were horizontal! It turned out no boats had been out to sea for a week. However the dive shop told us to turn up at 6am as planned when the final call would be made. Having dived plenty in the UK we knew how to read a weather forecast so promptly cancelled and rebooked for the day after. Sure enough, they didn't dive. We were vindicated as the day after dawned absolutely flat; the sea was like a fridge door as we made the 3 hour journey to the site of the Yongala.

SS Yongala was an Orient style steam ship, 120m by 15m, 1500 tonnes unladen, launched in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1903. She left Townsville on 23rd March 1911, just 45 min before the cyclone warning was given. She was due to be fitted with a radio before her next cruise! She was last seen by the lighthouse keeper's daughter as she steamed past Cape Bowling Green towards the storm. She was never seen again; nor were the 121 passengers and crew.

Wreckage was discovered on shore about a week later, but it wasn't until 1946 that Navy soundings revealed something which might have been the Yongala. In 1957 she was first dived. She had sunk in 28m and was lying on her starboard side. Since that first dive, the Yongala has become something off a mecca for divers and is widely spoken of as the best dive in Australia. She has also been designated a protected shipwreck due to the loss of life.

Lying in 28m of clear tropical water, she's a pretty straightforward dive. The only problem is the plethora of stinging and poisonous stuff. The superstructure is still quite intact, possibly being held together by crustaceans. The masts lie on the sandy sea bed off to one side. The scour below the stern is chock full of fish, but the prop has been salvaged. The wooden decking is still in place, as are portholes and the ship's name on the bows. Peering into the 1st class dining room, you see more wooden flooring and ornate pillars holding up the ceiling. Further aft, you can see the toilets and a bath. Below, in the cabins, it's possible to see the portholes with glass intact. In the forward hold area you can see wine and whiskey bottles and bones which may or may not be human. The engine room is open and the engine is clearly visible. The wreck is a protected site so it's a look, don't touch policy and Adrenalin say no penetration is allowed. They also say it is illegal for your bubbles to touch any part of the wreck - and then proceed to tie a shot to it!!

The main problem for us as wreck divers is the wretched sea life! There's masses of the stuff: sharks, turtles, sea snakes (big ones!), wobegong, giant trevally, potato cod, napoleon wrass, queensland grouper... Then there's the crustaceans! The wreck is absolutely covered with soft and hard corals, hydroids, clams, etc. So much so that whilst you can make out the shape of the wreck, there isn't an inch of metal showing anywhere - except the brass. The large clams festooning doors and windows would make penetration difficult even were it allowed. So, as a wreck dive, it's interesting but there's not a lot to see as you're limited on what you can and can't do. As a life dive, it beats the Great Barrier Reef hands down. You'll see more fish and coral on this one dive site than anywhere on the reef. There's more of it, it's more colourful and there's stuff we didn't even see anywhere else like the sea snakes, which Steve had never seen before. So, if you like coral and fish, don't trek out to Osprey Reef, just go dive the Yongala.

We did 2 dives from Adrenalin, as follows;

We dived with Adrenalin Dive who are based in Townsville. They seem to run mostly out to the Yongala and certainly didn't offer us an alternative when we were blown out. Their boat is pretty large and stable (apparently conditions can be pretty rough on the Yongala) and seems to accommodate 21 passengers quite well. The trip is expensive even by Aus standards, we paid A$179 each for 2 dives. We also paid A$35 to hire some rather old and battered kit but it did function pretty well [after the application of a spanner to the first stage]. It's a 3 hour steam out, but that doesn't explain why it needs to cost so much. We did get a reasonable [cold] lunch and there were dive guides on board if you wanted them. On balance, the Yongala is a very good dive. It's an excellent reef/fish dive - probably even the best in Australia as claimed but don't run away with the idea that it's the best wreck dive as it's not!

You can e-mail Adrenalin at info@adrenalindive.com.au

Go back to the Rest of Australia Report.