Yongala in Townsville, Australia

Went for a dive on the Yongala with a couple of visiting friends, the ship sank in a cyclone in 1911 and has since attracted a large amount of fish and is covered in coral. The vis wasn't fantastic but the dive still enjoyable. D200 with Tokina 10-17mm lens. Comments welcome

f/6.3 1/200

f/6.3 1/200

f/6.3 1/160

f/6.3 1/160

f/8 1/160

f/8 1/160

f/11 1/100

f/11 1/100

f/8 1/160

f/6.3 1/160

Regards

Gary

We had fun

I'm afraid to say, i'm the bearded one!!!

Hi Gary,

I'm going to be up that way in Townsville at x-mas to see two of my sons. (one of which is 5th Av, counter terrorism)...

Anyway, which operator did you dive with and was it double dive or one drop?

What FStops were you using on the Tokina? I have the Nikon 10.5mm F/E and was going to use it with a 1.4 teleconverter...any thoughts?

Nice pics, I really like the snake.

I believe that there are a few of them on and around the Yongala...

Bruce...

Hi Gary,

Nice shots on the wreck. Was the current ripping? We dove it 24 years ago and still consider it one of the top five dive sites I 've ever done. Thanks for the memories.

Hey Bruce back when we dove it the site wasn't bouyed and the way the boat captain found the site was by looking for the congregation of sea snakes on the surface. Fun stuff.

Steve

Hi Bruce, went with Yongala Dive out of Ayr (an hours drive south of Townsville) it's a 30 - 40 min trip on the boat from there, it's a 3hr trip from Townsville. You get a double dive and get back at the dive store by 1:00 - 2:00pm, so I could still make the drive back to Cairns at a reasonable hour. Have edited the post so the fstop and shutter speed are under each one had my ISO set at 200, I used my lens at 17mm end most of the time, so with the 1.4 it should be ok.

There are a few snakes on it, they are big olives, but not as many as Steve remembers, but there is so much going on on the wreck its easy to miss stuff.

Wow Gary the invertebrate growths there are amazing! Love to get to dive there sometime

and see those awesome White-spotted Guitarfish as I've seen quite a few photos people have

taken of them there over time.

Are you using dual strobes with these shots the lighting appears somewhat one sided to me?

Cheers,

Jim.

Lovely shots Gary. It shows just how much life there is on this old wreck.

The self-portrait is priceless too mate. Crop it and you've got yourself a new avatar.

Hey all those shots look familiar, I spent 1 month diving/filimg it for a Japanese TV doco last year.

We did a night dive and some evening dives on it.

While some dives were alright.... some were just &^%$# amazing.

Going out from AYR in the rib is much better than that 6 hour boat ride from Townsville.