Instalment 13 - The Aquatic Realm Townsville, Whitsundays

aka Steve Zissou

We drifted into Townsville after dark and went to the first campground without any real idea about how far out from the centre we were. It turned out to be the loudest campground in the world- caught in a neat triangle between a busy railway freight line, a main road, with the gates to hell making up the final trident. Whatever was behind the gates was quiet until about 10pm when some kind of metal grinding started. The bursts would last for 5 minutes and were loud enough to drown out the tv in the camp kitchen. As they repeated themselves every 15 minutes until morning I was glad we’d only booked the 2 nights. National radio had bought our attention to Townsville’s racist reputation with allegations of an active Klu Klux Klan. Indeed amongst the permanent sites that were in the majority we spotted a trailer proudly flying a rebel flag.
The reason to come to Townsville was to see the Great Barrier Reef and also a sunken shipwreck called the Yongala that was reputedly a top dive site. Killing 2 fish with one spear we elected to go on a live aboard boat. Prodive ran a trip that left the next day for 3 nights with 10 dives with everything included at a very reasonable price.
We got on board late on a Friday night and were introduced to the crew and introduced ourselves to the other customers.
It was a good bunch with Stu and Kerry, 2 dive instructors that ran a similar operation in the British Virgin Isles, a couple from Brisbane, Simon and Annie a couple of doctors from the UK, a Canadian Miner who resembled Tim Nice but dim and a Swiss student.
Another young married East German couple, Michael and Claudia, made up the group and it was their second trip on the boat in 3 weeks. It appeared that the couple had some kind of scheme going on between them as they had stayed with the owner of the company for free in between trips, had paid half price for this trip. The husband would deliberately make himself scarce whilst his wife would cause havoc blatantly flirting with 2 of the crew that were traipsing around after her. In fact it transpired that one of the dive instructors was actually working for free as it wasn’t his shift, and it seemed just to be with her. He was only 20 or so and normally I think he’d be confident and cocky, but was a dribbling wreck for the duration of trip and seemed entirely unaware how painfully obvious his yearning was to the rest of us.
I digress.
Siobhan and I were booked to do the advanced course, as part of the wreck was at 30 metres. The original plan was 2 days of reef diving gaining the necessary skills and then onto the wreck for 2 dives on the last day. Due to bad weather though we steamed overnight to the wreck and our first dive of the trip would be deep off the wreck itself. We were awoken at about 5.45 am and ordered into our gear. It was clear everyone else knew what they were doing as I wrestled with unfamiliar gear. The horizon was an incredible fiery red and in contrast the sea was pure inky black, and directly below us was the steam ship Yongala, 100 metres long having sunk with all aboard in 1911. The metre high rollers that rocked the boat on an otherwise still morning gave off an eerie feeling and were not helping my nerves at all.
Our dive instructor Brendan however was absolutely excellent and as soon as we were underwater the usual calm took over. We descended down the marker buoy tether and were immediately presented with an enormous variety and volume of fish. We sunk down to 30 metres and carried out a series of exercises then started to make our way along the keel of the ship. The visibility was about 20 metres and you could clearly distinguish the hulk. Brendan pointed out various aquatic life including a turtle munching on coral, however I was a bit surprised when he reached out and grabbed a sea snake, going against most of what I’d heard about them. We all had a stroke and continued on our way. As we ascended a 2 metre bull shark appeared and circled us several times. Suddenly all of the fish vacated the area as the shark gave off a sharp cracking noise and accelerated away.



The 2nd dive we took a good look at the superstructure and the inner workings of the boat were clearly visible. The Yongala sank in a cyclone with all aboard, together with the lack of radio and any discernable damage the exact reason that it sank remains unknown.



As we came off each dive a pattern seemed to be emerging as the German lad Michael was nowhere to be seen as his wife squirmed around in her bikini on the deck pretending to be stuck in her wetsuit allowing Kane (the love struck crew member) to step in and help her out.
Next we steamed over to the outer Great Barrier Reef. - Wheelers Reef






This time we were just allowed to wander off by ourselves which I hadn’t expected. For all I’d heard about the GBR I suppose I was expecting to see a largely dead and broken coral, and as a result was just blown away by the experience. It did feel a bit like swimming around in a china shop but the sheer abundance of, well, stuff was incredible. The night dive was different again as everyone set out with tight beam torches and glow sticks. The whole scene was akin to an aquatic rave. It was quite funny seeing so many fish asleep, with one in particular lying at a 45 degree angle against some coral and I definitely detected snoring.
Early the next morning we were guided to a spot and a squadron of Manta rays went over head, whilst a large shark was asleep against a wall of coral. It appeared to suddenly wake up, turn round, enquire as to what we were doing in his bedroom, flick us a fin(ger) and went off in a sulk.
The other dives included a drift dive which was rather like flying and I spent most of my time with one arm out superman style as the strong current flung us down a canyon and over coral sky scrapers.



The last night dive we set off alone and after pursuing a white tip shark in the gloom we proceeded to get a bit lost. It took almost the rest of the time to find the glow sticks marking the anchor point.



On the last day we were taken to another location to explore a bommie, a coral tower. Whilst swimming around there was a loud grating noise which I assumed was the dive boat’s bulk head breaking up. Siobhan thought it was something to do with her ears. On getting out of the water and stepping over Claudia flapping about on the deck we could clearly see a humpback whale breaching about 5 – 600 metres away, it turned out the noise was its’ song. Listening properly on the last dive it was instantly recognisable and I immediately wanted to light a joss stick, dread my hair and sell essential oils.



The steam back was uneventful as I supped on my first beer of the trip. Unfortunately I was by myself as Siobhan was lying green and inert in the cabin, whilst everyone else was either being sick or lying in various states of distress around the boat in the high swell.
Next on the list - The Whitsundays. Although I’d entertained ideas of hiring a boat myself it was clearly fantasy. We got to Airlie Beach at lunchtime we got ourselves a last minute deal for 2 nights on the Dream Catcher yacht.
Airlie beach itself looked heavily geared towards party party so we headed into the hills – Eungella National park, in search of the illusive platypus. Turns out not so in this park and as we stood on a little platform 2 of the duckbilled creatures put on a little performance. In the absence of clear signage we camped on the flats near the rangers hut and so were treated to an encore in the morning.



The trip on the Dream catcher was to be a bit more relaxed so we struggled aboard with a slab of beer and met our skipper and crew – Dieter and Lucy. Dieter looked the part, a real salty sea dog originally from Austria. He exuded confidence and had once come 3rd in a Sydney to Hobart race. He struck me as old school particularly when he described the shotgun he had bought when his daughter was born (from his now ex – wife) and had shaved off an inch off the barrel every year on her birthday. At 16 he said it was now the correct length for when his daughter bought home her first boyfriend.
‘Yes, it now fits nicely into my sleeve, and was short enough for him to make out ze red of the ze shells’



The sailing part was quite lively with 25 – 30 knot winds, and we were at a good incline as we got to meet the others onboard.
The next day we got dropped off at Whitsunday Island to try and get the picture you always associate with the Islands. I guess we’d been to enough remote places that the literally hundreds of others dropped at the same time made no real difference to us. I think some of the others had expected it to be a little more deserted and everyone was trying to take pictures at strange acute angles to try and get round the swarms of backpackers. I heard the words photo shop bandied around a fair bit. Actually it was pretty nice and no one seemed keen to get in the water so we had a pack of sting rays hanging out a swim away mostly to ourselves.



We spent the afternoon snorkelling and a pleasant evening beneath the stars. Early the next morning we were allowed to snorkel again, whilst Dieter kept an eye on us due to the currents. I was idling about when an enormous roar made me almost jump out the sea like a gaffed salmon. Dieter was sat laughing in his dingy about 3 feet away deliberately buzzing the outboard at my head.
We arrived back in an exciting dash with most of us crouched at the front as waves crashed over the bow into us. Despite it seeming like a random sort of sail back we arrived at the jetty dead on 12 – the allotted time, the skipper making the whole thing look effortless.





Time constraints meant we immediately jumped in the car and drove south for another 6 hours, camping and heading off early the next day.
Destination – Faser Island…