Facts relating to scuba diving:

• SCUBA divers cannot pass gas at depths of 33 feet or below
• A dance class of 74 scuba divers created a world record on October 27, 2006 at Olympic Park Aquatic Centre in Sydney Australia by dancing simultaneously for ten minutes. No one is yet sure why.
• Australian divers Ron and Valerie Taylor love to swim with Great White sharks, and were the first people to swim with the sharks without a cage and not be eaten. (http://www.deepoceanexpeditions.com/about5_8.html)

Location: Townsville, Queensland

Weather: Cloudy skies, rain on the way down to Alva..then the sun came out! 28°c

This is the one I’d be waiting for…the chance to further my experience and training by diving on the very famous site known as the S.S. Yongala around 11 nautical miles off the coast of Australia. I was full of excitement and even some nerves as I climbed out of bed, packed my bags and jumped in the hire car ready for the drive south to Ayr and the office of Yongala Dive – the company who’d be getting me through stage one of my Advanced Diving course.

When I flick through the pages of the Lonely Planet’s Guide to Diving and Snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef there’s a section which always catches my eye…The Best Dives. The Yongala is described as the ‘Best Wreck Dive’ (some even say in the world) – an oasis on the sandy desert sea floor with stunning marine life. As I’ve never dived one before it’s going to be a day of mind-blowing experiences!

S.S. Yongala in her heyday

The S.S. Yongala was a steel passenger ship built in 1903 and serviced the coastline of Australia. On the night of 23rd March 1911 she left Mackay on what would be her final voyage to Cairns. Onboard were 122 people, a prize racehorse and a red Lincoln Bull all under the experienced hand of Captain William Knight; a very capable sailor with 14 years of service to the Adelaide Steamship Company.

The wireless radio for the Yongala was sitting in Cairns awaiting fitting once she arrived, meaning the ship only had lights to communicate with the mainland and with a cyclone fast approaching this was in no way ideal! The message never got to the ship and sometime around 23rd March she was hit broadside by the full force of the storm condemning her to a watery grave where she remained undiscovered for nearly 50 years.

Some interesting facts about some of the passengers on that fateful night:

• David Coyne of Mackay was trying to find a taxi to take his family’s luggage to the port. However, the taxi driver was an old friend and by the time they left the pub and arrived at the wharf, Yongala had already sailed.
• Miss Annie Darling Murray had booked and cancelled at the last minute, deciding to stay longer in Brisbane with her family.
• Mr J Campbell, the owner of a newly acquired racehorse called Moonshine arrived very late at the wharf and was advised to travel on the Cooma, departing Brisbane later in the afternoon. However, he insisted on travelling on Yongala having heard it was more luxurious. Special arrangements were made, and Moonshine was loaded, with Campbell boarding just prior to departure.
• Clifford O’Brien joined at Mackay. He had taken out a 300 pounds insurance policy while at Bundaberg, on his way north.

In 1958 two divers took a particular interest in the strange lump they’d been looking at on naval charts and decided to investigate further. Exploratory dives showed the wreck of the S.S. Yongala listing to starboard but surprisingly intact and as evidence of their discovery recovered the ship’s Chubb safe from the hull later tracing it to purser’s cabin onboard the doomed vessel.

S.S. Yongala

I arrived at Yongala Dive amidst a mixture of excitement and trepidation. Steve my dive master for the day talked me through my kit, the dive site and the difference I’d experience dropping down to nearly 30 metres below the surface rather than my normal 18 which I’m allowed as an Open Water diver. It’s pretty damn reassuring when someone with so much knowledge takes you through the basics…all of a sudden it didn’t appear quite as daunting.

Once we’d checked our equipment, loaded it on the RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat) and signed our lives away it was into the Land Cruiser and down the beach to the launch site. The wind had been up over the last few days at around 20 knots meaning a rough 30 minute ride out to the dive site and a rolling, swirling mooring to tie up to once we got there.

I’m so glad I don’t suffer from seasickness – there were a few green looking people by the time we donned our BCD’s (Buoyancy Control Device)!

…and then all of a sudden it was here, the moment I’d been waiting for – my first official deep water dive! A quick check of my kit, air and procedures, a simple roll-over entry and I was floating in the ocean holding the mooring line. Steve signalled to me all was ok, the last of the air escaped from my BCD and I started the descent towards the Yongala…

It took a while for my eyes to focus on the blue environment I’d just dropped into, the visibility here is less than most sites on the Great Barrier Reef as the wreck’s located around 12 nautical miles offshore surrounded by a totally sandy bottom. Equalising all of the way we dropped to the ocean floor passing schools of Giant Trevally and Mackerel as we descended coming to rest at the bow of the Yongala now 28 metres below the surface.

As I looked around the sheer size of the wreck came into play, the boat is over 100 metres long and towers above the seabed and the marine life around it is utterly immense. The deck is covered in coral and thousands of oysters, around swim so many small fish that it’s almost as though a smokey cloud covers the hull, parting occasionally as they get spooked by my bubbles.

The layout of the Yongala

Groups of giant trevally hover motionless above the wreck facing the current, turtles pick at the sponges littering the deck, sea snakes twist effortlessly through openings in the hull and my jaw drops (as far as it can with a regulator stuck in it anyway!) with the reality of what I’m seeing and the sheer number of species all living together on a single dive site.

The wreck itself almost becomes irrelevant as I fail to focus on the near 100 year old burial site, my attention constantly being dragged away by yet another ‘first’ as my eyes scan the life massing around me…the final ten minutes giving me a finale of note:

• Two Marble Rays come into view, passing a few metres below me…
• as they turn away, five Reef Shark’s twist and turn in their wake, and I look down…
• As a Hawksbill Turtle swims underneath me

The perfect ending to a superb dive which definitely takes the prize of Best Wreck dive ever…and I know it’s only my first but come on is it really likely to be beaten?

Ascending back to the surface after our essential safety stops at both 10 and 5 metres I break the water and turn to the boat…a huge beaming smile evident across my smug face. Not only had completed my first deep dive and passed the section, been face-to-face with some of the most incredible marine life yet but also ticked another ‘must do’ off the Top Ten Dive Sites on the Great Barrier Reef!

Back on the surface and the swell is still large enough to keep at least one casualty face down on the cushions. Brian fires up the engines and we’re off heading back to the mainland and our launch beach which we reach half an hour later. There’s one more treat to go though….a fat barbeque to fill my rumbling stomach after the day’s exertion.

Yongala Dive have a few movies too of the Yongala which you can access by clicking on the thumbnails below:

Tonight I have the pleasure of sleeping at the Yongala Dive HQ and Bee checks me into the super comfy double room at the top of the stairs where I lay for a while taking it all in…oh I hope the photos do it at least some justice.

End of day location: Alva, Queensland
Distance covered: 25 miles over rough, rolling ocean