SS Yongala Dive Trip

Apr 1st. The whole reason for having to stay near Ayr for 1 night is one of the most famous ship wreck dives in Australia (and probably the world). The wreck is teeming with life and is well preserved as well. The only downside is that it is in open sea and the weather can hamper trips out there. Ayr is only a 30minute boat ride out rather than the 2.5/3 hours from Townsville. This is the only plus point of Ayr.

Here is some history of the wreck itself - It sank in 1911 with the loss of everyone on board. Check this web site out for details.
http://www.townsvillemaritimemuseum.org.au/Yongala.htm

We get up early to get our Scuba gear ready in an effort to beat the weather front coming from the South. I have some brekkie, take my sea sickness medication and then we eventually get going. The boat is quite a small hard bottomed boat which is suited to blasting through the waves with its powerful engines. It is pretty bumpy going out but my breakfast is staying put (for now!). We get out to the wreck site and the crew spend some time getting us moored to the buoy. With the engines switched off the boat is rolling around a lot and I am not feeling good - I just want to get in the water but have to get my stuff ready. The boat is moving around too much so I decide to donate the contents of my stomach to the fish. I feel a little better but still rough. I get my gear on and am sat on the side with 1 fin on about to go in when I have to puke again. Then 5 seconds later I get the last fin on and backwards roll into the water - it is so much better. We start our dive clinging on to the rope to stop us from getting washed away with the strong current - Because we are wearing hoods, my mask isn't on snugly so it is filling up with water which I can't seem to be able to clear. I eventually get it sorted out but have wasted some air doing it. Once we get to about 10 metres down then the current is minimal. The dive itself is amazing - the wreck is huge and it teems with life. We swim the length of the starboard side seeing an enormous green turtle and I see my first shark - It is 5 metres below us and pretty big. Cool. The dive ends and we get back to the boat with the news that we are heading home and not doing a 2nd dive due to bad weather. This is cool with me as I am sick pretty much as soon as I am on the boat. Once we get underway then it is fine but then when we are parking up on the beach with the engines off I hurl again. I also fall over into the sea as we get out of the boat. All in all, not a great day - I will have to return though and get better weather so I can enjoy the dive properly - it wasn't worth all the effort just for the 30 minutes or so we were on the wreck. We are made a BBQ on our return to the dive lodge which is welcome - for some reason I have lots of room. The aussie group that I dived with were cool and it was good to speak to the locals as they took me out to dinner the night before. Now at the end of a long day is a 5 hour coach ride to Mission beach.