Given that those on the boat the previous week had missed their dives (due to the shot pulling off the wreck) we decided to head back to the Birchy for another attempt. We set course (well, Andrew did and we just sat and watched) and off we went.

Arrived on site pretty quickly, surprised at how flat the seas were (~1m) and we got the shot ready. Andrew then yelled out to let it go and it was off and racing towards the bottom. Fingers crossed we hit the wreck.

Dave & I would be first in today so we geared up and we splashed in. First thing I noticed was the viz (or lack thereof). On the surface we would have had maybe 3m, with lots of…um…I don’t know…plant matter, algae, fish snot??? Whatever it was, it didn’t make for clean, blue water. At least it was warm (21 degrees). Quick check to make sure everything is OK and then it’s the race to the bottom, hoping the viz would improve.

It didn’t.

Anyway, not to be deterred I hit the bottom, only to find the shot lying on the sand and no idea which way the wreck was.

Great! Which direction to head?

I looked around and thought I could see a faint shadow, so figured that way was as good as any. Luckily the wreck appeared out of the gloom after swimming only a metre or two, much to my relief, and I only had a 5m swim with the shot. Reached the wreck at the break just forward of the boiler and tried to find somewhere to tie in, all the time with memories of Spiro’s story from last week in my mind – there is no way today’s shot is pulling free today!!!

Found a nice big pipe and wrapped the chain around it about 3 times to ensure that it was not going anywhere.

I thne went for my usual meander around the wreck, headed up to the bow, squeezed through a few holes, back along the top of the wreck to the boiler, through the swim though and around the prop then back around to the bridge (or what’s left of it today) which then brought me back to the shot line.

I still had a few minutes of bottom time, so recovered an anchor that some unsuspecting fisho had got caught on the wreck and had to tie off. Nice brand new ‘wreck pick’ with a length of new chain and good quality line all still attached. I spent a few minutes tying up the line so it wouldn’t wrap around our shot and made it all neat and tidy for recovery.

Had another quick potter up to the bow and all to soon my 35 minute bottom time had expired and my TTS (time to surface) had reached 27 minutes. Figuring that was enough deco, I started my ascent.

Deco passed pretty uneventfully, and after what seemed like an eternity my computer finally cleared and I climbed on board, just in time to help Mike & Doug into the water (Dave was already on board and had assisted them in gearing up). Quickly warned them about the chain being ‘well secured’ and asked them to recover the anchor if they had a chance, and off they went. A minute or two later Andrew & Arthur were finishing their deco and coming onboard. We got them settled and sat to wait for Mike & Doug. Usual banter ensued, lots of snakes were eaten and before we knew it everyone was back on the boat, the shot recovered, and we were heading home.

All in all a greet dive. Yeah, it was cold on the bottom (15 degrees) and the viz was ordinary, but we’d got out, I’d had a nice, relaxing dive, caught up with the Newcastle lads and everyone had returned safely.

Note: Sorry, no pic’s today either so it’s only a shot of the Birchy prop that I took a few dives back.

Shortfin Mako Shark

Today saw Steve, Charlie, Arthur, Rod and I (Spiro) gather at Ettalong wharf for the second time this month with the hope of fair seas to be able to make it out. After loading our boat, the Barry D, we were away and rolling into the open sea. Today there was a bit of a lump to the ocean which to my surprise made me feel a tad sea sick, (I never get sea sick!)

After what felt like an eternity, our driver Arthur had us at our dive site. We sounded and found the mark and threw over the shot, with everyone helping us get our gear on, Steve and I rolled over the side into some nice warm water.

A nod and a wink, down we went. At 6 metres I look down to see Steve below me on the shot at around 15 metres checking his instruments, when I noticed something rather alarming in the distance. I immediately descended, faced Steve and squeezed his arm for his attention, as he looked up at me, he soon sees over my shoulder the cause of my alarm. We are being circled by a 3 metre Mako shark! This sleek torpedo shaped shark is zipping and twitching at us in tight circles arching its back in a behaviour that its clearly not happy! The thought that went through my head was that we needed to act. Up or down? Without a word we both automatically went down to the bottom as fast as we could muster.

At the bottom we saw that we were not on the wreck, so as Steve scooted off I tied off a reel and followed. We were only about 15-20 metres off it, while Steve scooted back along my line to bring the anchor to the wreck I reeled in my string, and got the white float ready to be deployed along the shot line, signalling the boat that it was safe to tie off.

The viz today was about 8-10 metres up top, with a green column of water from 20-35 metres opening up to 15 metres on the bottom. It was nice and warm for us on deco, however it was a cold 15 degrees on the bottom. Swimming around the keel side of the bow first then into the guts, I came out of the forward deck ready to go under the side of the wreck, when I spotted three large Jew fish (4feet) long. Back I stayed not wanting to scare them out, giving Steve a chance to see them too. After circumnavigating the wreck once nice and slowly, We decided at 30minutes bottom time that it was time to head. We couldn’t find the shot line, and found that it had been pulled from the wreck. While Steve went for one last look for the shot with his scooter, I began securing a line to the top of the boiler so we could begin to reel ourselves up off the wreck for decompression while not drifting from our location. At the 15 metre mark, Steve and I shot our SMBs to the surface indicating our location to our surface support, And it wasn’t too long that they had found us.

Deco was a tad intense with the thoughts of sharky lurking around somewhere, but soon enough time had passed and I was climbing aboard the safety of the boat once more. The others opted out of the dive due to sea sickness, and other issues, not wanting to force the issue. We retreated to The Fish Hut up the road from Ettalong, where ironically we had shark (fish) and chips for lunch and told a few tall stories.

As Steve said to me when I hopped back on board the boat, we will never forget this one mate!

How true this is!

Spiro

 7am saw myself and Arthur standing around waiting for the others to turn up (was a 7:30 start) and over the next half hour Mike, Doug, Charlie & Andrew arrived and we had a full boat. We also ran into James from Scuba Shack and his guys and all had a bit of a chat about how bad the diving has been lately. Fingers crossed today would be better than the last few weeks (last week was cancelled and the week before was the Valiant??? It’s that bad!).

 We decided on the Birchy (aka SS Birchgrove Park) for today, one of the old ’50 milers’ that used to run coal from Newcastle to Sydney to feed the power stations and sank in a storm back in the mid 50′s (2nd Aug 1956) that now lies in 51m. Loaded up the boat with our mass of gear and off we went.

 As we came out of the bay and into open ocean we saw that surface conditions were pretty nice so a quick chat and we had a change of plans – let’s do the Tuncurry!

The SS Tuncurry is a wooden steamer that sank in 1903 after springing a leak and was carrying Explosives, Cement, whiskey, jam and other general cargo between Sydney and Brisbane.

We arrived onsite very quickly, setup the sounds and shot line and before you knew it I was getting the nod from Andrew to throw the anchor. A couple of quick passes once it hit the bottom showed that the shot was probably 10m SW of the wreck, not to bad I guess. Charlie and I then geared up and splashed into 24 degree water with 15m+ vis!

Started my descent and in true Sydney fashion, passed 30 and the water went from 24 degrees to 15 and the vis was down to about 8m. Great, I’ve got no compass and the wreck will be just out of sight! I arrived at the bottom (58m) and started to look around and could see no sign of the wreck. Luckily, Charlie was only about 20 seconds behind me and had a compass, so a quick NE bearing and we started to swim the anchor to what we hoped was the wreck. We only had to swim about 3m and the wreck started to appear out of the gloom, much to my relief. We arrived at the cement bags (which have set to stone over the last 100+ years) and I started to look for somewhere to tie us in. Found a strong looking hunk of metal, wrapped the chain and off I went for my dive.

It was a pretty easy dive, I had tied in right next to the boiler so I just started pottering around the cement bags, finding bits of brass (which I left of course – it’s a protected wreck) and a couple of interesting looking doors. Headed towards the stern past the props and then back down the other side. Did this look a couple of times, over the boiler and basically had a great ferret around the whole wreck. All to soon my 30 minute bottom time was up and it was time to start my ascent, just as Arthur & Andrew were arriving on the bottom so I waved goodbye and up I went. My deco passed uneventfully – back above 30m the water was toasty warm (to be honest, it was a bit to warm for drysuit, hood, gloves, etc, but I’m not complaining) and at 66minutes I was hitting the surface.

My first thought on hitting surface: Yay! It’s pouring with rain! 

Never mind, I’ve just had a great dive, I’m in a drysuit and at least it’s not cold. If the rain keeps up it might even wash my gear for me

We waited for everyone else to complete their dive and then headed back, all a bit tired and wet, but smiles all around after a nice easy dive on the Tuncurry.

p.s. Sorry, no photo’s today.

John inside the wreck

After Sydney’s ‘coldest start to summer in 50 years’ and weeks of wind and rain, I didn’t hold out much hope for today’s dive on the Adelaide – truth be told, I was most interested in testing out some new gear (the ‘Titanbox‘ – a solid titanium frame for my Inspo CCR), adjusting some weight and that was about it, maybe 10 minutes in the water and I would be happy.

After an early start and a dream run up the freeway I arrived at the Haven at 6:30, right behind Arthur and settled in to wait for everyone else to turn up and listened to Arthur’s tales of the trip to Truk that the guys had just got back from. After an hour or so, Mike W (our driver), Roy, John & Graeme arrive and we started gearing up (still missing two, but we had an 8:30am mooring booked so there would be no waiting!). Quickly got ready and we loaded the boat and started to motor out of the haven, at which point our two latecomers arrived, so we came back in picked them up and headed off for the quick run out to the wreck.

We arrived at the site and the first thing I noticed was that there was only one ‘official’ mooring which belonged to

Roy outside the wreck

Prodive Central Coast and Bob was already onsite and had divers in the water. We noticed that another ‘unofficial’ mooring (i.e. a float tied to the wreck) was free so quickly jumped on that. Guess whoever is managing the site needs to do some work with the mooring system – there are now 5 moorings and a cardinal marker sitting in Terrigal Haven, all of which have come loose – one was found in Jervis Bay!).

I quickly jumped into the water and promptly sank like a stone! Seems the Titanbox is much heavier than I expected and although I had removed 3lb’s from my weight belt that was nowhere near enough and I was massively overweighted (the following day on the Coolooli I took another 6lb’s off and was still slightly heavy - in the end I removed 11lbs). As I was ‘falling’ onto the wreck I noticed that the viz was actually pretty good – around 15m so although quite overweighted I decided to go for a bit of a swim and have a look around.

Main nav light above bridge - June 2011

It’s been a few months since my last Adelaide dive and the change in the wreck is amazing - it’s now covered in growth and there is virtually no bare metal visible in the outside at all. The top of the bridge is now covered in seaweed (yep, seaweed!) and the rest is covered with a hard growth (Compare the ‘Main nav light above bridge – June 2011 witht eh same shot in Dec 2011). The fish life on the wreck has exploded as well, on my last visit the decks were covered in Fortescue but not much else, today there was all sorts of fish buzzing around inside and outside (yeah…I should know what some of them are, but I’m a wrecky so fish isn’t isn’t my strong suit).

Main nav light above bridge - December 2011

I dropped down to the stern at 36.6m, swam in through the bottom hole and pottered around through the engine and machinery rooms, then up to the next deck and basically zigzagged up the decks to come out at the bridge. I hit the top of the wreck at the 60 minute mark and started my ascent with a 5 minute deco obligation. I arrived at my 6m stop and after waiting for the Vision to clear deco I surfaced and then it was back on board, wait for the last of our divers to surface and then the quick trip back to Terrigal.

All up, it was a great dive – far exceeding my expectations!

Growth on the top of the bridge

A big thanks has to go to Mike W for voluteeering to drive the boat. Having a dedicated driver is a luxury we don’t often have and it makes the day go much quicker when we can get all divers in the water at once and thanks also to Graham for allowing me to use his pic’s in this post.

Share ]]> http://www.bwac.com.au/751/ex-hmas-adelaide-2/feed/ 1 http://www.bwac.com.au/714/kiama-dive/ http://www.bwac.com.au/714/kiama-dive/#comments Mon, 10 Oct 2011 01:05:18 +0000 Spiro http://www.bwac.com.au/?p=714 Today we decided to take BWAC 1 for a bit of spin out of Terrigal. The dive site today was to be “diver’s choice” 

Today saw Spiro, Arthur, Charlie, Mr Knox, Dave Brewster, Grant (sick) and Paul Minahan gather at Terrigal haven at sparrows fart. After a rough and tumble night of storms up and down the coast, we were relieved to find that the sea was dead calm. We geared up in the middle of a mild shower. 

We had considered diving the wreck of the Nerong today, due to the need to have perfect weather and a full boat – a rare privilege today in that we had both of these – to do such a long distance dive that would incur a bit of travel time, time which some people couldn’t afford due to family commitments, which is fair enough. 

With this in mind we then decided that a jaunt to the wreck of the Kiama would be the go. Sadly Grant was struck out due to a sudden case of nausea (we think he’s pregnant!) and Paul decided to can the dive due to Steve Knox arriving twenty minutes late, and this interfering with his busy schedule for the weekend. Poor Steve had been battling a flooding garage half the night but after over sleeping had still made it  

So, undeterred we loaded and motored north to the wreck of the Kiama! A crash course in “GST” (GPS) usage for Arthur our skipper made finding our wreck a little slower than usual, but the main thing is that we DID find it. Steve down first to confirm the mark and before long we were all beginning our descents. 

With hardly a breath of current the first 10 metres was a little murky with brown particulate, but on reaching the bottom (46mtrs) we found a smashing 10-15 metre Visibility! 

Recent ocean currents have blasted a fair bit of sand from this wreck, exposing all kinds of metal bits! Using some imagination it is possible to work out what some things once were. 

We were serenaded today with the loudest and most frequent whale songs I have ever heard and a short decompression and we were all back aboard BWAC 1 and heading back in to shore. 

There is a new coffee shop located above the footy field where there are also a good set of amenities. The coffee shop has some really great coffee and some really good food at a fair price.

Sorry Hammo, No Macca’s for us today!

 It was an exceptional day on the water for us that went and for me a great opportunity to meet Dave Brewster outside of a club meeting. For us that did not go, I think that a bit more patience needs to be considered towards your fellow club members, It’s never a good idea to have plans for immediately after a boat dive, as any slight hiccup (guaranteed it will happen) will most likely cause you to be late!

 Here is a little history on the wreck…

 The SS Kiama was a 446 ton, wooden steamer collier that steamed down the NSW coast on its regular journey between Newcastle and Sydney. The fate of the SS Kiama was sealed in 1951 when she was caught in a storm off the Entrance bommies.

She was a well known traveller along the Central Coast with a few of the ship’s crew being residents of the Central Coast.

The SS Kiama may not have been the prettiest of colliers but, as a workhorse plying her trade almost by clockwork along the coast, she was very profitable and reliable for her owners.

At 7am I arrived after a 2 hour drive from my home, at Ettalong wharf to meet Charlie, Andrew, Mike and a few minutes later Arthur arrived in our boat from his place. We were kitted up and aboard the boat in record time this day and it wasn’t long before we were headed out into the channel on our way.

Getting into some more open sea we all realised very quickly that the ocean was in fact as flat as a board. This helped us arrive to the wreck of the birch grove in record time! The weather had treated us today with not a trace of wind, rain and hardly a current.

With great ease I slip my tanks on, attach my mixes and roll over the side into almost lake like conditions where I caught up and descended with Charlie. Down we went to find the anchor resting amongst the bow section where we secured it fast to the wreck. The viz was a comfy 8-10 metres and the temperature I’m told was a little on the cool side.

Deco obligations conducted and we were all back on the surface greeted by Mikey and some jelly snakes!

It’s not often we are greeted with such pristine weather. I was convinced the day was going to be a write off. How glad I am that I was wrong. The old salts of the club had made the right call, one that paid off in kind.

Look forward to seeing more of you out on the water soon!

Reminder we have the wreck of the commonwealth this coming Saturday the 8th in 43 metres, so if you are capable of this dive please contact Michael ASAP

Cheers Spiro

Sydney and surrounds was blanketed in a thick layer of fog and there were places where I could hardly see the road. On the positive side, a thick fog usually means no wind (as that would blow it away), so maybe we would have a nice dive.

After a bit of a stressful drive, I finally made it to Ettalong, parked (we beat the Scuba Shack divers to the wharf and got some of the few remaining unlimited parking spaces) and caught up with the lads as everyone turned up. Usual banter and piss taking ensued and everyone was in high spirits – we were going to dive the Tuncurry and the conditions were looking great!

We quickly loaded the boat – we’ve got this part running like clockwork now – everyone puts their gear on the wharf, we wait for the 8am Palm Beach ferry to leave, tie up and form a chain to load up, and off we went. Look out Tuncurry!!!

Had a very quick run out to the wreck as the seas were so flat and we arrived onsite in record time, we quickly found the wreck on the sounder and launched the anchor. Fingers crossed we’d hit it.

We’d be diving in three groups today, Spiro, Grant & I would we first in, another group would gear up straight after us, arriving just as we were leaving the bottom and the third would boat-sit until we finished our deco and arrived back on board (ensuring that someone was always on the boat).

I quickly geared up, checked the PO2 on my CCR, all good, turned on my torch, not good – it didn’t work??? smack it on the boat a couple of times, nope, it’s dead! Oh well, never mind, pulled out my backup and it was working so I’ll deal with that later and splashed in.

Aaaarrrrrrggggghhhh!!! sh#t!!! Now my drysuit was leaking and I could feel what felt like a river rushing into the back of my suit and running down my leg, filling my suit! And it was cold!

OK, so torch is cactus and suit is filling with water, now I have to decide: do I pull the pin or do I live with the cold and keep going?

Always the optimist when it comes to diving, I hoped for the best and kept going, and as I passed the 50m mark and I couldn’t feel any more water coming in. Not sure if something was blocking the hole or I had gone so numb I couldn’t feel it anymore, but whatever it was, I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I’ll take it. I’d figure out later that day that the hole was cause by my rebreather rubbing and wearing the suit and in certain positions the rebreather case would put just enough pressure on the suit to block it.

Arrived on the wreck to find the sitting on the cement bags – Yay, we’d hit the wreck! As I was first down, quickly found somewhere to tie in and launched the cricket ball, so the guys on th3 boat would know we were securely on the wreck and they could tie up.

We had about 8m vis on the wreck and no current, so we had a nice, calm potter around. As I had a flooded suit, I kept an eye on the TTS on my vision handset (time to surface) as I didn’t want to long a hang, and all to soon my 30 minute limit was reached, so after 26 minutes I left the bottom. Deco passed smoothly until the 6m mark, where my suit started leaking again??? Spent the next 20 minutes alternating positions, trying to stop the leak – seemed ever time I moved my leg, the hole opened up and let more water in.

Finally, my computer cleared and I was climbing back onto the boat (and out of the water).

Got out of my gear, helped Mike & Doug into the water, and waited for everyone else to complete their stops.

All to soon, everyone was back on board and we were heading home, wet, tired and happy – another great dive!!!

The ride to the dive site was a tad bumpy due to Andrew hitting every pot hole in sight. As per usual there was the continual volley of wit the minute we stepped from our cars. We encountered two other dive boats nearby this wreck today who suggested the viz was terrible! One dive boat even implied that they were going to head home instead!

We decided we would chance it, No point coming this far to not even have a look, so after throwing the spear and ball over the side we dropped Michael K and Charlie in to go down and secure the line to the wreck. A few minutes later and the white float popped up signalling us that it was OK to tie the boat off. 

While we waited I think we all toyed with the thought of not diving if it was too cold or dark down there, some of us were, after all, only wearing wet suits! It wasn’t long and Michael K was climbing back up the ladder with a smile on his face, the conditions weren’t bad at all! I decided to take the plunge over the side first as I was planning a longer bottom time. And so I started to descend.

As Michael had warned us, the sea was like pea and ham soup and there was a fair old current to contend with, but down around the 30 metre mark I was delighted to find that the current had died off substantially and the visibility had opened up to a nice dark 8-10 metres. I can tell I’m diving with old hats when I notice that the anchor has landed and is tied to the exact same spot as the last three times I’ve been here.

Today I was pleased to not be suffering from narcosis as bad as the last few times I dived here, and hence I enjoyed the wreck a whole lot more. I can now say that I know what she looks like! She is a big boat lying on its port side in 50 metres. The bow is fairly well intact and very recognisable with its own swim through, winch gear and look out points. Its two or three masts are lying with cables still attached on the sand. The boiler and engine room is another swim through which brings you out to the gigantic propeller which sits out free of the sand.

The wetsuit guys spent a reasonable amount of time on the bottom with Andrew coming up to me before he left taking his reg out of his mouth to yell out “We’re goin!” I think they were a little cold   (Love my dry suit)

I spent another few minutes on the bottom before untying the anchor and dragging it clear of the wreck to begin my ascent and deco obligations.

A belly full of jelly snakes and mandarins later and we had the boat emptied, fuelled and packed away and we were on our ways home or to Macca’s for “yoghurt” (lunch).

I think everyone had a great day today! Now to look forward to a small sausage and some bubbles on the Adelaide at next weekend’s club day!

No deeper than the bottom, Spiro

I booked the boat with Michael Foster and asked him if he knew of anyone else that may like to dive with us, Arthur and Ulrike agreed to come along and Mike Wilson is going to boat sit for us (Thanks Mike).

I booked the mooring for 12:30pm as my son was playing rugby league in the morning.

We got to Terrigal have at 11:30am and it was a busy as ever, And after a good morning dive, Geoff asked if he could come along also.

We loaded the boat and headed out, the weather was warm for August and it was a little cloudy. When we got to the mooring 2 there was another boat stilled tied up, as we were a little early we started to gear up while we were waiting.

Graham, Matt, Greg and myself jumped in and swam over to the mast buoy, the water look blue and reasonability clear with a north running current and a 1m swell(Viz was about 10-12m), descending to the deck we past the mast and headed to the bow as I wanted to take some video footage around that area. After taking some video footage of Matt sitting on the bow we then headed below the bow and into the ship, Graham and Matt disappeared for a few minutes and headed to the sand at the bow to have a look before entering the ship.

We headed towards the middle of the ship I was videoing this as passed though room after room til we came across the missile launcher hole where Matt and Graham headed in deeper, Greg and myself were diving with Nitrox and did not want to exceed our depth limit, after a few minutes they were back and we continued towards the bridge.

At the bridge I videoed the captains chair as boy’s moved in and out of it. At this point it was time to head to the surface, after doing our safety stops we surfaced and the current slowly washed us back to the boat.

At the boat the other group was already on board and ready to go home.

We all had a great dive and there was no canoe rides (this is our saying for DCS) and I would like to welcome our new members Matt Dalton and Greg Rose.

We had the 8.30 am mooring time and already upon arrival there were numerous dive boats around going about their buisness. The water was clear enough as per photos although a tad cool. Thanks to Mike Wilson boat sitting, we were able to have a good hour on the wreck and only exited when I got a good dose of the shivers. The wreck is going to take a while to explore and is great for trying out the ole video and photo gear. Lights as well are very usefull for the exploration of the internal areas and the many access holes cut before sinking always give you some light to navigate by.

Putting a temporary line between the boat and the wreck is agood idea and saves a sometimes uncomfortable surface swim. The last diver out removes the line, Mike had the great idea of using the anchor rope. A great time was had by all, we got to meet Grants sister and new BWAC member and got stuck into the snakes on the way back. Coffees at the footy field cafe on the sunny balcony was how our day ended before our drive home.