Day 127: Townsville - S. S. Yongala

At six "I can't believe I have to get up this early" AM we got up this morning to do the legendary, one of the top wreck dives in the world, encrusted with living coral, S. S. Yongala.

This ship sank during a cyclone in 1911 taking its entire 121 passengers and crew with it. So as well as being a living artificial coral reef it is also a underwater grave site for those that lost their lives. This wreck was not discovered for 70 years.

Our day started with a 3 hour boat trip to the wreck. During which "Just call me Capt'n Jack, have you seen the movie Pirates of the Caribbean?" gave us our dive briefing, "Hold onto the rope and follow it down". This I promptly forgot as I plunged into the water and really believed the trouble I was having breathing would be eased if I took my regulator out of my mouth... luckily I didn't because that would be silly.

A few fin tugging minutes later, my dive buddy Oly, saw my wild staring eyes and put my hand on the rope, it all fell into place. I still couldn't breathe properly but at least I had something to hold onto and a direction to go in.

The wreck was abundant with sea life. Amongst others, we saw: eagle rays, sea turtles, shovel nose ray, sea snakes, groupers (one was said to be the size of a VW beetle and is affectionately called vee-dub, which we didn't see but we did see some big buggers that had nothing on Axel!)

Two dives later we were flat out on the upper deck and heading back to Townsville marina.

There were four U. S. Army guys that were on the dive who suggested we all go for a Thai meal afterwards. So Capt'n Jack and Ian from Adrenalin Dive, Dawn (Uni), Emily (backpacker), Tom, Greg, Joe Jerry and Dean(Army), met for a delicious dinner followed by a few too many drinks and games of pool (my pool shark days came flooding back to me as I thrashed Oly).

Appologies for the bad quality of the picture, I was using my camera phone and didn't put it on night shot.

Emelie