Andy had a major reg. malfunction but his trusty buddy Brenden saved the day and is now permanently partnered with Andy for safety reasons (Bec's now very jealous at night!). Arriving home thirteen hours after the day began a liquid refreshment went down very well as we rehashed the day and the photo editing began in earnest! Roll on Palau. There's plenty more to come!
Aids
Photos by Bec Farthing
We headed downstairs from our motel Saturday morning around 6am fully loaded with dive gear and all our TTF's tucked under our arms. After signing all of our paperwork off again! (some of us for the 4th time), we jumped on board the boat and started heading out towards Magnetic Island and onto the "Australia's Best Dive Site" The S.S. Yongala. We arrived at The Yongala after a very bumpy 3 hours and we were all in the minute we got the call to hit the water. As we dropped down onto the wreck we realized this was going to be awesome dive. The wreck was just there in front of us covered in life. Very rarely do you go somewhere and it is actually better than what you anticipated. After 5minutes on the bow mesmerized by the masses of fish we began to fin with the current down toward the stern. Drifting down the wreck we could see schooling massive giant trevally, painted sweetlips, large grouper, barracuda, batfish, golden trevally, queenfish, turtles, spanish mackerel, and sea snakes. Laying onits starboard side, the whole length of the wreck is encrusted, with hard andsoft corals, black corals and whips.
As you are not allowed to penetrate the wreck, the fish life outside morethan compensates for this. Finally reaching the stern we got to see the verylarge rudder, tucked in under the counter lever stern, were more large grouper,
sweetlips, morwongs and others hanging in the gloom. Heading back towardthe bow down the starboard side, 2 large masts have fallen over and hang across the deck providing shelter for more schooling sweetlips, grouper, snapper and on the day a very large cowtail ray. Finning into the current now, you had to remind yourself to stop and look up because there was lots of activity above you, schooling barracuda, jacks hanging about 5m from the surface even bigger giant trevally cruised below. Finally reaching the bow we stayed as long as we could but eventually we had to make our way up the shot and then head back to the boat.
Grins on everyone's faces tell the story. A bloody fantastic dive, as good as it gets perhaps. A very short surface interval to enable us to maintain the "schedule" sees us back at the bow again with very little current. More is discovered on the wreck this time including the 2 anchors on the bow and the toilets just up from the 3rd cargo hold. A good day was had by all except perhaps Bek, who unfortunately drove the porcelain bus for a while and my camera (a TTF - a thing that floods) which was flooded by the actions of the crew.
