At 04:40 the fire alarm went off right outside our room and Ian and I dressed only to then find the alarm had been silenced. I exited the room regardless to find the reception guy of last night wandering around the corridors again. I enquired as to the cause this time and he informed me that it was the rain that set the alarm off again. I returned to bed for another hours sleep before rising to face the day and go diving again!
At 06:30 we were outside the Tropical Diving shop waiting for the doors to open. A few of us had gathered outside. We didn't get to try any gear on for size for Ian and I took the initiative and tried fins on for size. Ian's were incredibly tight so it was a good job he tried them on. Mine were fine. We embarked the boat and set off at 07:00. The boat was much, much smaller than Scuba Pro II and much more like the vessel we used in Tonga, but newer. The trip to Magnetic Island to collect more people was okay, a bit choppy but okay. After lots of faffing about we eventually left Magnetic Island and transitted across the Coral Sea, in very choppy conditions, for a total of 3 hours 30 minutes. At 10:30 we had arrived at SS Yongala wreck. I was very glad that I had taken some motion sickness pills before leaving this morning. The swell was between 1 and 1.5 metres and the whole thing was very reminiscent of Tonga, in the way the boat was being tossed about in the ocean, the lack of organisation and professionalism. To begin with I hadn't got a wetsuit. I rolled my eyes to Ian as I half expected something to go wrong, as it always does when we don't try gear on beforehand. Still, as I paid and asked for gear hire, and even quoted sizes to the company at the time of booking, I expect those things to be on the boat for me to use. They then found that the wetsuit intended for me had been given to someone else, from whom it was then taken and passed to me. Once donned it was slightly too big but then the gear certainly wasn't new, like in Tonga. Then came the BCDs. Both Ian's and mine were huge and later, in the water, we would find they were really too big for us and would float some distance above our bodies underwater. Everyone had been kitted up and sat with their gear on including tanks and Ian and I hadn't been given any masks, fins nor snorkels. I had to ask for them. Well, guess what? My fins were a mismatched pair, one size 3-5, the other size 5-6. Surprise, surprise. It was the size 3-5 pair that I tried on in the shop this morning that fit like a glove. So, another pair of size 5-6 were given to me and one chap asked me if they were okay. I'm 70 kilometres from Townsville, I'm about to dive the SS Yongala wreck, they're the only pair of fins available to me, what choice do I have? In my usual tone I replied, 'no, they're not okay but if that's all there is I don't have much choice, do I?' I'm amazed that a pair of mismatched fins made it onto the boat in the first place and also that no one had noticed before. Then the masks and snorkels were selected for us. There was no choice, you accepted the one they gave you or you didn't dive, there weren't any spares.
I briefed Ian on handling me if I was to encounter a surface problem, as to date I have done in rough conditions, and then we entered the water. I grabbed hold of the surface line and at the descent line signalled okay to Ian and we deflated our BCDs.
The wreck became visible pretty soon and I was amazed to see how many schools of fish there were straight away. We did a tour dive with one of the divemasters so we could familiarise ourselves with the wreck for our second dive. We went with the current along the wreck to the stern. The entire wreck was covered in corals and almost immediately we saw a snake eel swimming over the wreck. The fish swimming around were huge. Some of them, many of them, were like we had already seen recently on the Great Barrier reef but so much bigger! There were giant batfish, yellow tailed fusiliers, a 2 metre stingray on the bottom, great trevally, Queensland groupers, potato cod, angelfish and a turtle. The visibility wasn't brilliant but the aquatic life made up for that. Fighting against the current was less fun than drifting with it, as you can imagine, but wasn't too much hard work. The Queensland groupers are giants, about 2.5 metres long!
For our second dive we paired off as a buddy pair and it was terrific. We roughly followed the same route as the first dive but stayed shallower. This time we didn't see the turtle but Ian spotted a grey reef shark and there were more snake eels swimming about the wreck. There were batfish hovering, opening their mouths and gills for smaller fish to clean them. The maori wrasse were swimming about being their inquisitive selves and there were three Queensland groupers resting on the bottom being cleaned by cleaner wrasse. As we were about to ascend at the ascent line we spotted two groupers hiding in the bow of the ship, just peering out at us.
On the surface we embarked the boat and degeared. The skipper was exceptionally helpful in this task and clued up with regards to divers, he knew what to do and how to run a diving vessel. As we were about to leave the dive site two turtles surfaced and poked their heads above water to take a breath of fresh air. They were fantastic, it was such a lovely site!
The return trip was better than the outbound one although it still took 3 hours 30 minutes. On arrival at Townsville we jumped into the car and drive to Airlie Beach, 302 kilometres away. It rained for the duration of the journey and I slept through most of it. Ian was busy swatting flies on the windscreen. It was near to 23:00 when we arrived in Airlie Beach so we went straight to bed.
Copyright 2003 Helen Fuller. All rights reserved.