We had travelled to Albany in March for a dive holiday to see two main things, the recently scuttled destroyer HMAS Perth and hopefully a leafy sea dragon. However, Albany was to provide us with many other wonderful surprises.
Arriving in Albany late in the afternoon, our first stop was the dive shop, Albany Dive.com. We were greeted warmly by the owners Uwe Klinge and Liane Sulkowski, and informed that the weather was looking good for diving the HMAS Perth the next day.
The next morning was sunny, warm and calm, and found us at the town jetty where Albany Dive.com have got their own landing where you can gear up and later wash your dive gear. Originally from Germany, Uwe and Liane fell in love with Albany and opened the dive shop in June 2001. They have a well stocked dive shop and offer dive courses and daily boat dives on their 8.7m sharkcat.
Our skipper for today was Karl Lehmann, with Liane Divemaster. We were soon travelling on the picturesque King George Sound on our way to the HMAS Perth. The guided missile destroyer HMAS Perth is 122m long and was scuttled on 24 November 2001 in the sheltered waters of Frenchman Bay, about 20 minutes away from the town jetty.
Before we knew it we were tied up to the HMAS Perth mooring right beside the ship’s mast, which protrudes above the surface. Liane gave us a dive brief, with the aid of a blue print of the ship, and then we were in.
The visibility was around 12m with the water a pleasant 18C. We headed to the mast and then descended to explore the bow section. The ship sits in 35m of water and is a haven for marine life. We were soon engulfed by masses of yellowtail and were impressed when six huge samsonfish came charging through hoping to pickoff the slow or the weak.
In the five years the HMAS Perth has been on the bottom she has become overgrown with sessile life. Every part of the ship is covered in sponges, soft corals, hard corals, ascidians, anemones, gorgonians, bryozoans, hard corals and algae. Swimming over the deck on our way to the bow we stopped to admire handrails covered in pink jewel anemones. These anemones are stunningly beautiful and extremely photogenic.
After a quick circuit around the bow, we then headed down through the hole where the bow gun turret was formerly located to explore the interior. With torches in hand we dived through a maze of rooms, finding toilets, basins, piping and other items. There was plenty of light in these rooms from the numerous access holes cut into the side of the ship. We exited near the bridge and swam up for a closer look. The bridge was fascinating to explore, especially with the captain’s chair still in place.
As we swam around the HMAS Perth we saw a wealth of fish life; trevally, sweep, morwong, leatherjackets, globefish, wrasse, sea perch and lots of boxfish. A close look around the funnels revealed a large cuttlefish that kindly posed for photos. At the end of the dive we had a look around the radar dish, before doing our safety stop on the large mast structure.
Between dives Karl and Liane filled us up with warm soup and coffee, and an endless supply of biscuits. On our second dive on the HMAS Perth we explored the stern. We searched through a number of rooms, finding the Operations Room with many computers for missile launching still in place but now covered in sponges. Our main stop was the large stern gun turret, which is encrusted with growth and home to nudibranchs. Swimming back along the deck the silhouette of the funnels and mast surrounded by masses of yellowtail was an impressive sight. On our safety stop at the mast we were entertained by several false Tasmanian blennies that kept popping their heads in and out of the handrails. The HMAS Perth is a stunning dive, and Uwe later informed us that it is common to be buzzed by Australian sea lions while on the ship.
The next day dawned cloudy
and windy, but we quickly learnt that there is always somewhere to dive in King
George Sound no matter which way the wind is blowing. The sound was a little
choppy, however that didn’t stop us heading out to Breaksea Island to dive
Seal Cove. Uwe was running the boat today and took us close by Seal Cove to see
the New Zealand fur seals lazing on the rocks. A few dozen seals reside in this
colony located at the north-eastern end of the island.After tying up at the mooring we quickly gear up and jumped into the blue water. The visibility today was superb, over 20m. We headed to the sand at 15m and then followed Uwe over the kelp to a group of bommies. These bommies were just amazing, covered in large gorgonians, soft corals, sponges and even black coral trees. There was plenty to photograph with abundant fish and invertebrate species. Swarming around the bommies were a school of banded sweep, and also wrasse, morwong and leatherjackets.
We then headed up a wide sandy gutter, finding a huge patch of cabbage coral. This hard coral was several metres across and had a sergeant baker and a western blue devil resting on it. Further up the gutter we disturbed a southern eagle ray feeding in the sand.
Back into the kelp and boulders in the shallows we were suddenly surrounded by a huge school of swallowtail, thousands of fish swarming above the kelp. Uwe then lead us to a large cave coloured by sponges and home to more reef fish. It was then off to spend the last of our dive playing with the fur seals.
For twenty minutes we did summersaults, twists, turns and tumbles to entertain the seals and entice them to play. They zipped quickly around us or would just float above, staring at the bubble blowing aliens. A great way to do a safety stop.
Uwe then moved the boat over to dive the Cheynes III, a whale chaser sunk as a dive site in 1982. Before the dive Uwe informed us that this was a good site for sea dragons, so to keep an eye on him while in the kelp. The ship sits in 23m of water on a sandy bottom. Although the visibility was 12m, it was quite surgy, making photography a bit of a challenge.
The Cheynes III is 47m long and quite a lot of fun to explore, but unfortunately it has started to collapse on itself making penetration unsafe. The ship is completely encrusted with sponges and soft coral, and home to a variety of reef fish, including morwong, wrasse, talma, old wives, scorpion fish, sea perch, boxfish, moonlighters, sweep and bullseyes. We did a lap around the vessel, looking into the bridge and other rooms before heading back into the shallows to search for a leafy sea dragon.
There were some lovely bommies protruding above the kelp and covered in patches of cabbage coral. Uwe pointed out several bizarre Erna’s basket stars, a mass of intertwining arms, sheltering amongst the coral. Swimming around the kelp bed we found striped stingarees, western blue devils, sea stars and some pretty western chromodoris nudibranchs.
Suddenly, Uwe started waving his arms, we hurried over to see the most spectacular fish of southern Australia, a leafy sea dragon. We spent the next ten minutes studying and photographing this little beauty as it slowly swam along the kelp. It was amazing how quickly the dragon would disappear against the kelp if you took your eyes off it even for a second. After plenty of photos we left the leafy to return to the boat on a very big high.
The following day was pretty miserable, no wind but it was raining. We headed out to Breaksea Island again and dived Breaksea Cove on the western end of the island. In the overcast conditions the water was quite dark, however we had a nice dive exploring the ledges, canyons and caves at the site. The corals and sponges were again outstanding and we were glad we had torches to explore the many ledges. The highlights of the dive were several western blue gropers and a school of Australian salmon.
The warm soups were much needed between dives, helping to warm us up. With almost no swell Uwe took us over to the south-eastern end of Michaelmas Island to dive The Caves. The visibility was much better here, around 20m even with the gloomy conditions, and there was plenty to see.
This site consists of a jumble of boulders dropping to the bottom at 25m. The boulders form walls, gutters, ledges and caves, and there is even one huge boulder that rocks, the grinding noise it makes is very unnerving. For over an hour we explored an endless maze of crevasses, seeing wonderful corals and plenty of western blue devils and other reef fish. We also had some close encounters with some very colourful harlequin fish, which patiently posed for our cameras.
The next day was our last in Alba
ny
and fortunately was sunny and warm with little wind. We were booked onto the
afternoon dives, so took advantage of the lovely weather to do some sight
seeing. Albany is one of the prettiest towns in Western Australia with many old
and historic buildings. The city was Western Australia’s main port for almost
a century and a whaling station until 1978. The old whaling station is now a
museum and well worth a look. At the station is another of the whale chasers, Cheynes
IV, which was fun to explore and point out familiar features after having
dived the Cheynes III.We also stopped at the wind farm, which supplies 75% of the city’s power, awed by the size of the propellers. While in the Torndirrup National Park we looked at the spectacular granite cliffs that take the full brunt of the Southern Ocean swells. There are also many other tourist attractions around Albany that you would be hard pressed to see in a week, including wineries, beaches, a historic fort and many wonderful national parks.
For our final dives we had another wonderful tour of the HMAS Perth before Uwe took us to a very special dive site. Not far from the old whaling station is a dive site called the Boneyard. This site was one of four dumping grounds for whale hip bones.
We descended to the sandy bottom at 19m to find lots of western stingarees. Swimming toward a dark shape ahead we were stunned to see a reef completely covered in cabbage coral and swarming with fish. It was hard to tell what was bone and what was old coral, but it was the living environment that interested us. Swimming around the coral the fish life was incredible; schools of swallowtail and bullseyes, and also western blue devils, goatfish, talma, gurnard perch, old wives, boxfish, wrasse, sergeant baker, scorpionfish and many, many more.
We swam two circuits around the Boneyard, which is about the size of two tennis courts. Invertebrate species were also well represented around the coral, including nudibranchs, sea stars and a large cuttlefish. This was one amazing dive site and a great way to finish a wonderful dive trip to Albany.