On recent dives on the HMAS Brisbane in October and November the conditions couldn’t have been better. Heading out on 2 EZY, Sunreef Diving Services very comfortable dive boat, in October we had a pleasant journey out to the dive site in warm sunshine, no wind and flat seas. We all knew it was going to be a good dive as looking over the side of the dive boat we could see the outline of the HMAS Brisbane in the blue water below.
Everyone quickly geared up, and jumped in to be greeted by 25m visibility and warm 23°C degree water, the best conditions on the ship in months. We headed straight to the stern, looking for stingrays and gropers, but on the way paused to watch three spotted eagle rays gliding by the ship. Eagle rays are now quite common on the HMAS Brisbane and visit the ships many cleaning stations.
Dropping under the stern, no stingrays or gropers today, instead there was a small school of red emperors and a much bigger school of mulloway. There must have been several hundred of these metre long fish hovering over the sand, and mingling with them were trevally and pufferfish. It is fortunate that the area around the HMAS Brisbane is protected as a marine sanctuary, so these magnificent fish could parade so boldl
y.Before returning to the ship we had a quick scout around the sand and found flatheads, Maori rock cod, hermit crabs and quite a few nudibranchs. We then entered the ship to explore the rear compartments, which were full of cardinalfish and several lionfish hunting them. It was then up onto the deck to photograph the stern gun turret where we saw another eagle ray, nesting damselfish, anemonefish, wrasse, schools of fusiliers and an octopus hiding in a pipe.
Exploring the mid ship region I was amazed to see how large the soft corals had grown since my last visit. Some of these soft corals are a metre long, and the colours they add to the HMAS Brisbane are just spectacular. Spring time on the HMAS Brisbane especially sees the nudibranchs remerge from their winter hibernation and multiple in numbers, I stopped counting after seeing a dozen different species, and that was on only one wall!
Exploring more of the ship we found more lionfish, scorpionfish, Maori rock cod, squirrelfish, soap fish, purple rock cod, a large estuary groper, angelfish, butterflyfish, hawkfish, crayfish, boxer shrimps, crabs, fairy basslets and sweetlips. Towards the end of the dive, hanging between the two funnels, we saw another eagle ray, got buzzed by a school of trevally and watched a hawksbill turtle cruising along the deck, before finishing the dive surrounded by batfish.
Back on the surface the conditions had got even better, with the ocean like a mirror. The surface interval passed quickly and we were soon back in the water to explore the bow. But our first stop was on the forward deck, where an octopus was hanging out of a pipe. This cephalopod posed perfectly for photos and was at one stage surrounded by fusiliers. We then dropped over the side of the ship to explore the sand around the bow, w
here
a shovelnose ray had been seen on the first dive, this ray had disappeared but
we did see red emperors, snapper, sweetlips and several trevally.A few weeks later in November I had an even better dive. The visibility was again 25m and the ship was swarming with fish – trevally, kingfish, batfish, mangrove jacks, fusiliers, snapper, sweetlips, yellowtail, plus all the usual reef fish. We headed first to the stern, dropping to the sand to discover that the massive school of mulloway were still hanging around. After a few photos of these magnificent fish we moved over to a group of eastern painted sweetlip that were lined up into the mild current.
But the sweetlip were quickly forgotten as behind them was a large white-spotted shovelnose ray resting next to the rudder. This big ray was getting cleaned by a group of cleaner wrasse and allowed me to get very close for photos. A second shovelnose ray swam by, startling the first one, with them both swimming off into the blue. Next we found a large mangrove whipray partially covered by sand, and also on the sand around the stern were half a dozen Maori rock cod, red emperors, bream and flatheads.
We then explored the stern and mid-ship region of the HMAS Brisbane, finding the usual collection of nudibranchs, shrimps and other critters, but we hardly gave them a second glance today as the fish life was keeping us entertained. At the rear of the forward stack, while trying to photograph a large kingfish, I noticed that the hawksbill turtle was still in residence and was resting under a set of stairs. After a series of photos, the turtle hadn’t moved, it looked like it was getting used to divers and will hopefully adopted the HMAS Brisbane as its permanent home.
The fish life on the bow was just as thick, with schools of trevally, snapper and sweetlip milling about. I looked over the bow to watch all the fish and was surprised to see a big white cloud suspended in the water that the trevally were feasting on. Moving closer to investigate I suddenly saw a large
I then started to wonder what the white cloud was, at first I thought we must have stumbled on a mating aggregation of
The second dive that day was just as good. We headed straight back to the bow to observe the gropers, but unfortunately there were only three of these giant fish still hanging around and they were being very shy again. Another large shovelnose ray swam by with an escort of trevally before we headed up to explore more of the ship. All the fish, critters and the turtle were spotted again, but the highlight of the second dive was a spotted eagle ray cruising around the stacks.
f you haven’t experienced the HMAS Brisbane, then I recommended you book a trip to