You know it's going to be a good trip when the divers who turn up to the information night hit it off immediately. The November Yongala trip turned out better - it was fantastic, as much for the diving as for the great company.
Perspective
Our first day of diving was on three sites around Wheeler Reef. Coral reefs can become a bit ho-hum after you have dived a few of them. That's not to take away from the pleasure of diving; it's just that people expect bigger and better things from reefs the more of them that they have dived. Wheeler Reef delivered in a big way, especially on the second dive.
The first two dives were at a site called Student Bommie. While the first dive was a good introduction to the area, the second dive was breathtaking. Spoilsport had laid out a mermaid line which ran some 50m in length. As Muhunthan descended directly behind Spoilsport, he could see Steve (the ship's engineer) descending at the buoy attached to the mermaid line. Not only that, he could see well beyond that. So, at best guess, the visibility was well in excess of 50m. With water temperature at 27 degrees, it had all the makings of a great dive.
The Dive 2000 group trailblazed by diving this site in this way. The area is pockmarked by bommies rising 10m or more from the sand, at 30m. With a gentle current running, we drifted along poking around the bommies. Buzzed by reef sharks, barracuda and the usual assortment of trevally, parrot fish, sweetlips, batfish and any other tropical fish you care to mention, it was a nice cruise, ending up right underneath the little runabouts that come and pick you up (so who needs to navigate?).
The third dive and the night dive were at a site called the Garden of Eden. There were some interesting things to see, including lionfish and rays and a big boulder that was covered in anemone and clownfish (reminiscent of Anemone Bay in the Solitary Islands). The best thing was the turtle that we managed to startle - there was a short face-off between the turtle and Muhunthan before the turtle turned tail and swam off (understandably!) - followed immediately by a huge school of bumphead parrotfish that decided they were going to swim past Muhunthan and Angela in 2m of water, pecking away at the coral.
SS Yongala
Pronounced "Yongarla" on the east coast and "Yongluh" in South Australia (where the town after which the ship was named is located) and Western Australia, the shipwreck has been the resting place for 122 human lives (plus a horse called Moonshine and a red Lincoln bull – don’t ask) since 1911. (A short history of the Yongala can be found at the Townsville Maritime Museum’s website.) Almost 100 years later, the wreck is heaven for a marine biologist studying corals or tropical marine life. There is more packed on its 109m length than there is on some coral reefs.
Blessed by flat seas, moderate currents (although some dives had really strong currents), brilliant weather conditions, good visibility (not as good as at Wheeler Reef, but none of us were complaining), we did all of the dives we could at the Yongala. Turtles, sea snakes, guitarfish, parrotfish, bullrays, eagle rays, wobbegongs, reef sharks, trevally, barracuda, eels, sweetlips and an assortment of other fish and coral - the fact that we did six dives on the Yongala without wishing we were somewhere else just proves how diverse the diving is on such a small wreck.
Amongst the nine divers, only Kylie had a functional camera. Angela’s camera had an electrical problem to start off with, which she managed to fix, and then her camera batteries ran dry and she had no spare. Grateful for small mercies, Angela re-learnt an important lesson about carrying tools and spares before she headed off to Vanuatu in late December. Muhunthan too had problems with his camera – he was so stubborn that he carried it around with him on three dives to see if it would work. He resorted to tying it off the buoy ropes! So, surrounded by all these wondrous conditions and life, only Kylie managed to capture any underwater shots.
Still, what cameras didn’t capture are the great moments indelibly etched in our memories. Jennifer found certain marine life taking particular interest in her. A sea snake, for one, decided she looked to be a good mate and entwined itself around her as she frantically tried snorkelling away (backwards!). All of the crew and some of the other divers split their sides laughing! Of course, Ian and Terry (having attended a comprehensive briefing at the Townsville Aquarium before boarding Spoilsport) will tell you that the snake was merely working out what Jennifer was and that she should have stayed perfectly still (instead of trying to swim away).
Muhunthan managed to lose his two buddies, Kylie and Angela, on one dive before the dive even started. This has to be a bit of a worry given he was the trip leader! Thankfully, Kylie found her way back. Diane did come up with a great suggestion, which will be implemented on all future Dive 2000 trips: the trip leader will always have a diver below flag (even at the airport, like those tour leaders you see herding hundreds of tourists around)!
Muhunthan and Vicki also learnt a valuable lesson about communication and gear familiarity – not everyone’s
Bananas and chocolates
Somehow, on the information night, we got on to the topic of bananas and how they are bad luck on boats. Of course, no one believed Muhunthan but it was the catalyst for much humour later on. However, there is plenty of information on the internet (so it must be true!) about the superstition of bananas being bad luck on boats.
Josie also reminded everyone that divers were not allowed to penetrate the Yongala. Put “banana” and “penetrate” together and you get … (well, you know – this is a family oriented website).
So, when Jennifer managed to convince one of the crew to give her a bowl of chocolates and managed to eat a substantial amount of them before realising that the bowl was just enough chocolate for everybody for the whole trip, there was a desperate attempt at hiding the evidence (in Diane’s room) and replacing the missing chocolates. At about the same time, we discovered that Spoilsport had bananas on board. Diane deviously struck upon the idea of substituting monogrammed his and hers bananas for the chocolates (at least, for Lindsay and Vicki – they wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference now, would they?). At least they got bananas – everyone else missed out on both chocolates and bananas.
And if that wasn’t enough, Jennifer and Diane have mentally scarred a poor Townsville teenager, fresh from Schoolies, with images of Sydney women and waxings (there will be no elaboration!). Kylie had to find a dark corner of a pub to sit in privacy, cap pulled down to avoid the eyes of some rough looking guys! And for a guy who doesn’t drink, Muhunthan couldn’t even sit down without falling off the chair at the end of the trip.
We were a very odd group! But, adventures aside, it was spectacular diving and a great trip and everyone had a ball! And your last chance to dive the Yongala on board Spoilsport is coming up in 2 weeks - at the end of January, Spoilsport will be moved to Cairns. (And the alternatives are not very appealing!)
