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Dive Report: 17/04/98

S.S. Woniora, Off Botany Bay, Sydney


20 mins at 64m and 65min run time using Heliox and setpoint of 1. Divers: Scott Leimroth, Rod Nairne, Suzie Dudas, Max Gleeson (open circuit air)

After yesterdays dive on the Koputai today we were blessed with perfect conditions for the Woniora. The sun was shining and the sea was flat with no current. This wreck is renowned for big currents and often it takes many attempts before the anchor picks in as it is so small. Today we got it first go and descended in calm clear water to the wreck.

As I have dived this wreck many times before and considered I knew it well I was surprised that on heliox it seemed almost like a new wreck. Everything was so clear and I spent the first few minutes in awe of being so clear. I remembered my first ever dive on this wreck which was my first dive to this depth on air, and how I had thought I saw God. No kidding! I was so narcked.

I spent a few minutes around the boiler and found Rod showing Suzie the large guage attached to the engine. We spoke breifly, something you can do in a breather mouthpiece because of the air space. I found Max on the other side who had discovered a port hole. It was too covered in debris to be removed on this dive. I searched around the flat back deck. With no narcosis it was clear instantly exactly what each piece of debris was and I soon found a bullet amongst the other bits and pieces.

I swam towards the bow area and met Rod and Suzie who were on their way back from here to the anchor. It was strange, but becoming more regular, to swim past two other divers on breathers at 64m. The bow area is covered in sand and quite broken up. It is quite a way from the main wreckage with the only other landmarks being the donkey boiler off on the sand on the port side and a wich in the wreckage. I was amazed to see a lot more up forward than I had seen before. On air I am often hesitant to swim this far forward as it is easy to get disoriented on the sand.The whole outline of the bow was in fact visible in the sand. I heard Max holler which is his signal he is ascending. He did 15 mins on air.

I made my way back to the boiler and met Rod and Suzie again, preparing to ascend. Rod had found an old bottle from the wreck which sank in 1882. They ended up doing nealy 24 mins as Rod didn't want to leave in such good conditions. Since I had only a 3 ltr 150bar fill of trimix for bailout Rod signalled that he would make a slow ascent and watch me. I signalled I had 5 mins and spent most of it digging around in front of the boiler and on the starboard side. There was some exposed timber and other bits and pieces. I noticed a lot of coal between the boiler and the remains of the hull.

I also noted the fishlife I could see. The wreck was covered in many soft corals. There were hundreds of nannygai around the boiler and they were regularly bombarded by a small kingfish. A large tassy trumpeter was near the engine. As I pulled the anchor and drifted off the wreck I had a large school of slimey mackrel swim past me. Rod and Suzie noted a huge snapper thay had seen on the wreck.

the deco we followed was:

The whole dive was on heliox with a setpoint of 1 except for the 6m stop where the setpoint was 1.4 after flushing with O2.

In the last two days I had dived the two wrecks I had been most eager to dive with the rebreather (finally!) After 26 breather dives for a total of 20 hours and 35 mins. Just after I got out of the water we sighted a whale going past a few hundred yards from the boat. It would have been great to see it underwater with the breather

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