Yongala Wreck!

This. Is. The. Most. Amazing. Dive. Experience. Period!

I have to say that with 25 m visibility and superb clarity, an awesome array of fish ranging in size from 2 cm to those bigger than me, venomous sea snakes, beautiful delicate coral in every colour, human bones and, of course, a full passenger ship wreck, this goes down as one of the best experiences Ive ever had in my life!

Just thank God I had my underwater digital camera with me!!

We dived the wreck yesterday in the midst of a relatively calm sea which helped to provide for the vivid clarity underwater. Even at 30 metres depth the sun shine could easily penetrate to light up the bottom section of the wreck site. This was a blessing to be sure, since the previous day had only 15m vis.

Two dives were on the table, the first being a guided tour as we were shown the various points of interest around the wreck by our Japanese instructor Mr Khaji. He also wrote down (on his underwater writing board) the names of some of the fantastic fish (and sea snakes) that were to be seen including Unicorn fish, Grouper, Clown Fish.. the list goes on!

On the second dive, myself and my buddy, Thys, took a more leisurely approach and I got some fantastic shots of the poisonous sea snakes (one of which precariously swam 10cm away past my mask as it headed to the surface.. erk!) plus another sea turtle! In fact I took a video of the wreck and the turtle and will try to put those up on the site today...

Wow, well I can heartily agree with the slogan attributed to the Yongala dive as "the best dive in Australia"... certainly one of the top 4 wreck dives in the world!

Also I have good news, with this dive trip Ive FINALLY used up the capacity of my 128MB Flash card in the digital camera so Ive burnt the photos onto cd today and will try to get them up in the next few minutes...

By the way, another funny thing happened yesterday: I bumped into Sam on the dive trip. This was one of the lads that I headed out with for "THAT" night in Vientiane, Laos. It was a freaky coincidence to meet him in Oz (where he is now travelling with a friend). The three of us headed out last night for some beer and lotsa catching up!

Ill let the pics/vids do all my talking about how amazing my trip to Oz has been so far!

Im going to chill out in Townsville tonight and head off North again tommorrow... Ill update ya real soon folks!