I recently joined a charter with Sunreef Diving Services in July, only days before the sixth anniversary of the scuttling, to revisit an old friend. It had been a few months since my last visit to HMAS Brisbane,
due
to rough seas, endless summer rains and other commitments (like publishing my
book on HMAS Brisbane).On my first dive we headed towards the stern, the visibility was around 15m as we descended to the sand at 27m. Swimming along the side of the ship I noticed a wall of small sea fans, these were new and a pretty yellow in colour. Once on the sand I was surprised to see two large barracuda hovering above the bottom. I had seen the odd barracuda on the ship before, but none this big, these fish were as long as me. They were enjoying a clean by several cleaner wrasse, but wouldn’t let me get close enough for a photo.
Continuing towards the stern I spotted the resident school of mulloway drifting around one of the moorings. These spectacular fish have been hanging around the ship for two years and seem to enjoy the sanctuary status tha
t
HMAS Brisbane has. Ducking under the stern there were the regular red emperor,
sweetlips and Maori rock cod, but the highlight here was a Caledonian ghoul
slowly walking across the sand, the first I had seen on the ship.Ascending to the rear deck the usual reef fish were about – wrasse, damsels, anemonefish, fairy basslets, scorpionfish, butterflyfish, triggerfish and many other species. I was hoping to find one of the resident painted anglerfish, but they have either moved on or are so well camouflaged that I couldn’t find them. Instead I found nudibranchs, shrimps, featherstars, gobies and crabs.
Entering the rear cabins we explored an endless series of rooms. I am still amazed by the size of the soft coral trees, some a metre tall, that now flourishing with the flow of water through the ship’s access holes and doorways. Moving from room to room we saw rock cod, surgeonfish, lionfish, angelfish, boxer shrimps and thick schools of cardinalfish. We ended up spending quite some time in the operations room, photographing the missile launch computers that are covered in featherstars and surrounded by a halo of cardinalfish.
With bottom time running low it was time to ascend to the funnels for a safety stop where schools of fusiliers were milling. Usually a dozen batfish hang around here, but today they must have organised a reunion as there was a school of around one hundred batfish. They were a wonderful sight and had my camera working overtime, with the safety stop extended well beyond the standard three minutes.
After warming up in the sunshine, and enjoying a warm beverage and biscuits, it was time to explore the bow area. Heading to the sand we passed by several large flatheads and a school of trevally. Arriving at the bow we continued heading across the sand until the ship was out of view, then settled on the bottom to wait for one of the ship’s watchdogs to appear. In less than a minute our wait was rewarded with the appearance of a giant fish, a 2m long
After hanging out with the gropers for ten minutes it was time to return to the ship. We had barely got back on the bow when a wall of bonito charged by. There were thousands of them and they were quite a sight. We then explored the bow area of HMAS Brisbane, checking out the five inch gun, the bridge area and several more cabins. It was disappointing to see that several of the toilets have been broken, I can’t image it was the gropers, but it puzzles me that some divers think it amusing to smash a toilet – why? Returning to the funnels, the batfish had broken up into smaller groups, but I was busy trying to photograph the snapper and kingfish, but they eluded me. All too soon our bottom time was up and it was time to return to the dive boat.
HMAS Brisbane never disappoints, it is without doubt one of the best dive sites in
I love this dive site so much that I have recently self-published a book about HMAS Brisbane, detailing its history and the wonderful dive site it is today. The book is now available from dive shops in Mooloolaba and Brisbane, and online from Dive Log for only $19.95.