S.S Yongala

Hi!

I hope everyone at home is well. So many people have been complaining about the cold and snow via facebook. My head gets confused whenever I realise that it's November and I'm sitting in 33 degree heat. Hmmm.

Anyway, I'll stop annoying you all =) 2 days ago we drove back up to Ayr so that we could dive the S.S Yongala. I didn't like Ayr the first time, and this visit compounded my dislike of the place. We went to a pub and ordered some food, which was given to some Japanese people. When we asked where our food was they got really angry and grudgingly agreed to actually feed us, however they had run out of what we'd ordered. Grrr. Keeping the 2 of us away from food when we're hungry really isn't a good idea. Luckily they survived to tell the tale. While we were eating I was convinced this guy was staring at me, but I wasn't sure if it was paranoia. I went to the toilet and as I came out he was standing outside the door and told me that he wished he'd been in there with me. Charming. I mumbled something and we scarpered. Nice place. I think the gene pool is perhaps a little shallow there.

We went to see Quantum of Solace (James had been particularly excited about this) but were both a bit disappointed. Well.. at least we got to see some exciting flashy action. We parked Betty up in the middle of the road as we had last time. I went to the public loos to brush my teeth, and was followed in by some drunk aboriginal teenagers who were banging on the doors and shouting at me. Legged it back to Betty and spent a very hot and restless night. I don't think we'll be going there again!

We set off in the morning for Alva Beach to get to the dive shop. There was a really strong wind and we were worried that it would be called off, but they decided it would be ok and we got into the boat in the early afternoon. A very rough journey of 40ish minutes got us to the dive site. Immediately it was obvious it wasn't going to be easy, with a really strong current and 2-3m swells. As soon as we got in the water I realised these would be the most challenging dives I've done. We descended down the line (hanging on for grim death otherwise we'd end up in New Zealand) and made our was down to the wreck at about 25m. The life on the wreck was incredible, everything seemed to be much bigger than on the reefs I've dived and the sheer amount of fish was overwhelming. To begin with we swam into the current, which I found really difficult. At one point I realised that I was swimming as hard as I possibly could and was making no headway. I managed to grab James and flail around to signal that, so we split off and started to head back. The journey back to the stern of the wreck was rather easier as you can imagine and it was the fastest drift dive I've ever done! Just behind us as we reached the line was a 3m Bull shark. Eek! As we were doing our safety stops on the line an eagle ray came up just below us and hovered for a few minutes. We were both really excited to see it - I've never seen one before and it was beautiful! We both returned to the boat with 30Bar of air left and feeling pretty tired.

After a one hour surface interval we were back in the water. Again the dive was much the same in terms of current. This time we saw a huge Loggerhead turtle (and many smaller ones) and several olive sea snakes. This time when we were doing our safety stops, two absolutely enormous Marbled rays came gliding around. I would the larger of them to have been pushing 3m across, but it's hard to tell. Incredible. Another tiring haul along the rope brought us back up on the boat. I could hardly move when I got back on the boat.

The Yongala was a steamship that sunk in a cyclone in 1911. She was built in Newcastle (hurray!) and then taken to Australia. If you're interested in reading about the history of the wreck it's all on the website that I put in the last blog.

The journey home was definitely one to remember. The swells had grown in size and it was getting dark. We were travelling in a metal boat with a large fuel tank and several tanks of both compressed oxygen and air. Directly into a raging lightning storm. Fantastic! As you can tell we made it back to shore alive by about 8pm. We made our way back to Airlie in Betty and collapsed into bed.

Today James has headed to Whitehaven beach to check it our for himself while I'm recovering. My hands and shoulders are really sore from hauling myself on the rope and because of an old injury to my left elbow, that has swollen up a bit. However, there's no way I would've missed those dives so no complaints here! Tomorrow we're off for some diving here, and then on Tuesday we're finally saying goodbye to Airlie and heading on down the coast. We'll be doing a 4x4 jeep safari on Fraser island next weekend which we're both looking forward to.

Sorry for the length of this one! I hope that you all get a bit of warmth soon!

Katy x