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Expedition Drenched
14 June 2022
This week we’re pirates-turned-cheerleaders – supporting Amy as she becomes a PADI scuba diving instructor, and cheering about our dives on the HMAS Brisbane wreck.
This is an exciting episode for the Expedition Drenched crew. We’re lucky enough to get to explore the HMAS Brisbane wreck, and we get to be a team of salty cheerleaders as we support Amy as she trains to become a scuba diving instructor. Watching her chase her dreams and take a step towards sharing her love for the ocean with others makes us the proudest pirates around!
The HMAS Brisbane is a wreck that has some real history behind it, and a serious amount of sea life living in it now. The wreck is considered to be one of Australia’s top 10 dive sites and is an exciting experience for Open Water divers and more experienced adventurers. There have been over 250 species of fish, and over 1,000 species of marine life recorded on the HMAS Brisbane dive site so it’s pretty obvious why the crew was particularly stoked about this adventure.
The HMAS Brisbane was one of three Perth-class guided missile destoryers that served in the Royal Australian Navy. The ship was US-designed and was built in Bay City, Michigan in 1965. She was launched in 1966 and was officially commissioned into the Royal Australian Navy in 1967. She is named after the city of Brisbane, Australia.
The Brisbane was deployed to the Vietnam war twice, once in 1969 and again in 1971. In the late 1990’s, she was deployed to the Persian Gulf as part of Operation Damask and was awarded the Meritorious Unit Citation by the Australian Government for her actions in the Gulf.
Initially, it was proposed that the ship be donated to the Australian National Maritime Museum to replace the HMAS Vampire, a Daring-class destroyer. But luckily for us, and all the other enthousiastic wreck divers out there, the Brisbane was marked for scuttling as a dive wreck off the coast of Queensland.
Before the HMAS Brisbane was scuttled, she had some parts removed so they could be reused. Her search radar was removed and donated to the Royal Thai Navy for their use, and her bridge and one of her 5-inch guns were removed so they could be preserved and displayed in the Australian War Museum.
The actual sinking of the HMAS Brisbane happened quickly. Really quickly. The ship was filled with roughly 200 to 250 tonnes of concrete so she sank in only two minutes and ten seconds. But while she went down quickly, she sank exactly as planned and is now a hugely colonized underwater playground for scuba divers. Here’s a fun fact – to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the scuttling of the HMAS Brisbane, a Queensland radio station, 92.7 MIX FM, ran the world’s first live underwater radio broadcast from the wreck itself on July 31, 2015. That’s putting a whole new spin on pirate radio!
It’s always exhilarating to drop down on a shipwreck. In perfect conditions, it can feel like you’re parachuting down onto a ship docked at port. In poor conditions, it can be a totally creepy, eerie experience that has you questioning what you’re eyes are actually seeing. We had great conditions for our dive and revelled in the huge, coral-encrusted shipwreck that sat before us on the ocean floor.
The wreck is upright on its keel sitting in the sand at roughly 27m while the top of its stacks reach up to about 3m below the surface, depending on the tide. There are countless different rooms and areas to explore including the crew living space, sonar equipment room, boiler room, engine room, and even a guided missile silo.
While you don’t need a wreck certification to dive the HMAS Brisbane, it’s always helpful to have a bit of wreck diving experience when diving a wreck. Why? Well, because you can go inside this wreck and without experience and good buoyancy control you can easily kick corals and marine life, and even kick up loads of silt that can reduce visibility for everyone on the site.
The Brisbane wreck offers a few special treats for divers that want to explore the inside. Before it was scuttled, blast holes were put in the sides of the ship to allow divers unrestricted and safer access to all the treasures hidden inside the massive structure.
The HMAS Brisbane has been underwater for 22 years so it’s seriously rich in marine life from soft corals, anemones, huge amounts of fish, and even unique creatures like octopus. Inside the different rooms of the shipwreck you’ll find thick clouds of small, shiny bait fish that use the wreck to hide from the large predators that roam the local waters. Sometimes, divers will come face-to-face with massive Queensland Groupers inside the wreck too – a bit of a shock when you’re not expecting it!
During our dive on the wreck we made an effort to look past the schools of fish and take a closer look at the smaller creatures that make the walls of the wreck their home. Once your eyes focus on the smaller scale, the local nudibranchs start to become visible. These colorful sea slugs come in every size, shape, and colour imaginable and for a diver with good eyesight (and a macro camera), nudibranchs can easily become the highlight of a dive. We were lucky enough to spot a multicoloured Painted Nudibranch and an alien-looking Yellowlined Roboastra.
The HMAS Brisbane gave us such a stunning dive that we decided we’d jump in after sunset and dive the wreck a second time. After the sun goes down, the large ocean predators begin to hunt, so a dive site can be incredibly different between daytime and nighttime. We were really hoping that the wreck would come alive and we’d see some even more impressive ocean life.
We were not disappointed. During our first dive, we ran into a Day Octopus hidden under a small ledge, trying it’s hardest to not be seen. It’s hard to top an octopus sighting. But while on our second dive, exploring the wreck through the beams of our underwater torches, we hit the jackpot and came across a tiny baby octopus. Watching the impossibly small creature move it’s tentacles and breath through siphons was an experience that none of the current Expedition Drenched crew will ever forget.
This week, we really think everyone should try to follow in our footsteps. The HMAS Brisbane wreck is a stunning underwater experience for any kind of diver and it truly shouldn’t be missed. With it being so close to shore, it can easily be something that you can check off your list in a single day. Which will give you the time you need to check in with Sunreef Mooloolaba and Platinum level PADI Course Director Kai Steinbeck and talk to them about becoming a PADI dive instructor, just like our Amy did.
Let’s all give Amy a big CONGRATULATIONS for becoming a real-life PADI scuba diving instructor. It’s not an easy undertaking, but Amy crushed it and we can’t wait to see her start to teach others how to breath underwater and enjoy our stunning ocean world. Keep making us all proud, Amy!
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