Smart Travels: Queensland diving

Saturday, 5 August 2017

Queensland diving

On our trip to Australia we managed to fit in three days' full diving. We started at the Great Barrier Reef, a UNESCO Natural World Heritage site, and first tried to dive at Fitzroy Island, near Cairns, but the visibility was pretty bad, so we gave up. We headed out the next day with Tusa Dive to Hastings Reef on the Great Barrier Reef, where we did two dives at a site called Fish Bowl, before heading to another site called Coral Gardens at Saxon Reef for our third and final dive of the day.

diving at Hastings Reef, Great Barrier Reef

The diving was good but visibility was so-so, and as we're used to diving in tropical waters a lot of what we saw was similar to our Indian Ocean diving. As August is (southern hemisphere) winter, temperatures were similar to Reunion at the same time of year (23-24°C), even though Cairns is further north (16°N).

diving the Great Barrier Reef

We didn't take our own wetsuits, and the 5 mm ones they supplied us with were long-sleeved but short-legged - something I'd never seen before!

with a clam, Hastings Reef

Hastings Reef

me with a turtle, Saxon Reef

spot the ray! Saxon Reef

Two days later we were about 450km further south near Ayr, to dive the Yongala with Yongala Dive. The SS Yongala was a vessel built in 1903 that sank during a cyclone on 23rd March 1911 en route from Melbourne to Cairns with the loss of all 122 passengers and crew aboard . It created one of Australia's most intriguing maritime mysteries, as she lay undiscovered for more than half a century, until 1958.

diagram of the SS Yongala

Today the coral-encrusted wreck has become home to an incredible array of marine life: giant gropers, giant trevally, cobia, sea snakes, turtles, batfish and moray eels. Everything we saw there seemed larger than the same marine life seen elsewhere.

We did two dives, and frustratingly another group of divers who came up from their second dive a few minutes after us had just seen a bull shark.

looking back from the bow§, SS Yongala

The wreck is 109 metres long. The bow points in a northerly direction (347°), and although she lies listing to starboard (right), the vessel's structural integrity has been retained.

SS Yongala

The depth of water to the sea floor is approximately 30 metres, with the upper sections of the wreck 16 metres below the surface.

SS Yongala

Although the Yongala lies within the central section of the Great Barrier Reef, the sea floor surrounding the wreck is open and sandy, so it has become an established artificial reef, providing a habitat for a wide range of marine life.

moray eel, SS Yongala

As there was loss of life on board the vessel when it sank it is now a protected dive site and you are not allowed to penetrate inside.

spot the turtle, SS Yongala

Our final Australian dives were probably the best! We dived with Wolf Rock Dive off Rainbow Beach in southern Queensland, a full thousand or so kilometres south of Ayr (latitude 25°S). What makes Wolf Rock special is that grey nurse sharks (also known as sand tiger shark, spotted ragged-tooth shark, or blue-nurse sand tiger) are found there all year round.

map of Wolf Rock

The numbers of sharks vary according to their lifecycle and the largest amount are always seen from spring through to autumn (the dive club has counted up to 54 in one go).

grey nurse sharks at Wolf Rock

We did two dives and on the first dive saw a handful of sharks, plus several manta rays, an eagle ray, a Queensland grouper (also known as giant grouper) and schools of batfish and barracuda. On the second dive we hit the jackpot and saw 16 sharks! We also saw an enormous green turtle and a manta ray during our safety stop.

grey nurse sharks at Wolf Rock

shark's tooth in the hand of the our dive guide

Despite many of the sharks being pregnant females they didn't seem to be perturbed by our presence, however they did react a little agitatedly to a free diver during our first dive.

manta ray, Wolf Rock

Wolf Rock is actually a set of four volcanic pinnacles two kilometres north-northeast of Double Island Point in Cooloola, Queensland. It is said the rock was named for one of Captain Cook's crew who first saw the rocks on rounding Double Island Point. There was certainly an Archibald Wolfe on Cook's voyage, but Cook doesn't record the rocks, nor anyone in particular seeing them (or the point) first.