Decommissioned in October 2001, the future of the 133m long guided missile destroyer HMAS Brisbane was determined when the Sunshine Coast Artificial Reef Group (SCARG) won the tender to sink the ship as an artificial reef and dive site.
However, plans to sink the ship by November 2002 didn’t come to fruition. Cleaning costs, insurance issues and other minor issues served to delay the process. Once all these issues were resolved, the HMAS Brisbane finally arrived in Brisbane in July 2004 for cleaning and preparation.
With the cleaning finally finished in July 2005, the HMAS Brisbane made her last voyage, leaving Brisbane on Friday the 29 July. Overnight she was towed to her final resting place, 2.5 nautical miles off Mudjimba Island, just north of Mooloolaba on the Sunshine Coast.
For Greg Riddell and Paul White of Sunreef Diving Services it was a big relief to finally see the ship anchored off Mooloolaba. Both have been heavily involved with SCARG, and had waited a long time for this day to arrive. Greg was very emotional and told me “when I saw her sitting there first thing Saturday morning I started to get really excited, she had finally made it” Greg also added “well she can accidentally sink now and at least she’s is in the right spot!”
However, there was little chance of her sinking on the Saturday as the ocean was like a pond, with hardly a breath of wind.
I headed up to Mooloolaba, from Brisbane, to join the crew from Sunreef Diving Services as they had been hired as the ferry service for the sinking crew. That gave me a chance to get some final photos of the HMAS Brisbane before she disappeared beneath the waves.
Setting off from Mooloolaba Harbour we could hardly miss the old destroyer as she loomed large on the horizon. Paul was driving Sunreef’s 7m long inflatable and was pleasantly surprised to find it took only 15 minutes to reach the scuttling site.
The
last time I saw the HMAS Brisbane she was almost a whole ship, now she looked a
little worst for ware. Her mast had been removed for a memorial on the Sunshine
Coast, her bridge was also gone to a naval museum, but at least she still had
both her gun turrets. She also had over thirty holes cut along her sides,
allowing for access to almost all parts of the ship.There was supposed to be a one nautical mile exclusion zone around the vessel, but this wasn’t being policed, with dozens of boats, jet skis and even surf skis coming and going around the ship. The sinking crew had spend the day knocking out the plates that covered the access holes, and also doing the finally cleaning.
We did a circuit around the destroyer to get some photos, and to give us a last chance to admire the ship close-up while she was still on the surface.
On board the HMAS Brisbane was Roy Gabriel, the explosives expert from Canada, whose job it was to put the ship safely on the bottom. Roy spent the day positioning charges and the detonation cables that would send the ship to the ocean floor, assisted by his son Roy Jr.
For the next three hours we ferried the sinking crew around and then back to shore when they had finished the work for the day.
Sunday 31 July 2005, the big day had finally arrived.
I headed up to Noosa early in the morning to join the crew from Resort2Diving to watch the HMAS Brisbane being scuttled.
Prior to the sinking, tenders were called giving four dive operators exclusive commercial access to the ship, at a very high annual premium. Everyone expected the four existing dive operators at Mooloolaba and Noosa – Sunreef Diving Services, Scubaworld, Noosa Bluewater Dive and Resort2Diving – to get these contracts. The first three shops won contracts, unfortunately Resort2Diving missed out to a new company that plan to dive the ship from a helicopter!
Though very disappointed at missing one of the contracts, the crew from Resort2Diving were still keen to watch the sinking.
The wind had picked up on Sunday, and was blowing 10 to 15 knots from the southeast, which made the trip down to the sinking site a little bumpy. Arriving at the site at 8am, we had hoped to get permission to do a run through for photos, but it was absolute chaos around the HMAS Brisbane.
While we waited outside the exclusion zone, dozens of boats were just charging through, some pulling up right beside the ship. The police, coast guard and EPA had their hands full chasing all these boats outside the exclusion zone.
As we watched and waited for the 10am scuttling, hundreds of boats gathered around the HMAS Brisbane. Although there were designated areas for VIP, commercial and private boats, the majority of people appeared to be completely unaware of this or even the need to stay outside the exclusion zone.
Ten o’clock arrived. All boats were finally cleared from the exclusion zone. Above us were nine helicopters, three light planes and even a glider, while thousands lined the shoreline. We then heard over the radio that a pod of humpback whales had been spotted and were heading straight for the HMAS Brisbane. They had to scuttle now or wait more than an hour for the whales to clear the area.
The countdown began.
At 10.12am the first explosions went off. Fireballs rose above the ship, these pyrotechnics where just for show, the real explosions were happening under the waterline. Six booming explosions fired off her decks, creating a large smoke cloud around the vessel. This smoke, along with the half metre surface chop, made taking photos of the sinking very challenging.
She started to go down very quickly. In under a minute water was washing over her decks. Air was racing to escape the hull, with the water violently bubbling around her. She went down slightly bow first. Then in just over two minutes her funnels disappeared and she was gone. The Sunshine Coast biggest tourist attraction was finally in place.
The first divers
on the wreck found her lying perfectly upright. On Sunday, Monday and Tuesday
commercial divers were the only divers on the HMAS
Brisbane, checking that all
the charges had gone off, removing the detonation cables, positioning six
moorings around the ship and making sure she was safe for recreational divers.On Wednesday 3 August, I was very fortunate to join Sunreef Diving Services for the very first recreational dive on the HMAS Brisbane. The ship was not official open to recreational divers until the 13 August. However the dive operators with contracts were given ten days to familiarize themselves with the ship to enable them to safely guide divers around and through the old destroyer.
We met at Sunreef Diving Services at 6.30am. Our group included; Greg Riddell and Paul White, the owners of Sunreef, Craig Carlyle, Daniel Andrews, Craig Bath, Gary Cobb, Tom Baddle, Jason Blackwell, myself and one person on his very first openwater dive – Roy Gabriel Jr. Ten very excited and eager divers.
The weather was perfect, light winds and only a small southerly swell. We headed down to the Mooloolaba Harbour and loaded the gear onto Cat-a-pult, a very comfortable 8.2m Noosa Cat that Sunreef Diving Services will be using to dive the HMAS Brisbane (along with their 7m covered inflatable).
This was only going to be a single dive and we all agreed not penetrate the ship on this first dive, but to familiarise ourselves with the external features.
With much anticipation we left the harbour and headed out to do the first pleasure dive on the HMAS Brisbane. It took only 20minutes to arrive over the ship. The HMAS Brisbane and the site around her have already been declared a marine sanctuary – no fishing – and boats are not allowed to tie up to the moorings or even within the area without a permit.
Motoring over the site the water looked blue, and we could clearly see the ship below. We tied up to the bow mooring and quickly geared up.
Greg and Paul were given the honour of being the first on the HMAS Brisbane, after all the hard work they had done getting the ship for the Sunshine Coast.
I buddied up with Craig Carlyle and we were the 4th buddy pair to enter the water. As soon as I jumped in I could see the bow gun turret directly below me. The visibility was quite nice, around 15m, not bad considering the ship had only been down three days.
Craig and I dropped down onto the bow, which sits in 15m, and swam straight up to the large gun barrel. I had to touch it, my first contact with the HMAS Brisbane. After swimming a circuit around the gun turret, which is so much bigger up close, we continued towards the bow.
The anchor chain stretched over the deck and disappeared into the blue. At the bow Gary was busy photographing something small, when we got close we realised it was a ‘Smurf’, stuck on the bow like a figurehead.
Craig and I then dropped over the side to check out the large ship numbers painted on the bow. The huge 41 made Craig look tiny as he swam passed it. Moving in front of the ship she looked amazing sitting so upright on the sand, she almost looked like she was still ploughing through the ocean waves.
As we headed towards one of the access holes I could see the sandy bottom below, at 27m. Craig and I popped our heads in for a quick look. The interior looked very clean and it was also very bright, the access holes allowing plenty of light in. We swam along the starboard side of the ship, peering into several more access holes. It was very tempting to enter the ship, but if we did we would run out of time to explore her exterior. To avoid temptation we headed up onto the deck level and swam along the gangway.
All the handrails are still in place, but I noted that no portholes remain. We continued along the side gangway, passing hose reels, a gun placement, bollards and ladders. Above us towered the funnels, but we would leave them until last.
Continuing along the gangway we also passed a number of doorways. Again we just quickly looked into these rooms seeing many things to tempt us inside. We then arrived at the rear gun turret. I continued to shoot photos, thank goodness I had my new digital camera as a roll of film would have been finished in the first five minutes.
I got so carried away on the gun turret that I hadn’t realised that Craig had been down to the stern and back. Well the stern would have to wait for the next dive. We then headed up the port side of the ship, swimming along the gangway and peering into more rooms.
We explored the area between the two funnels, and here we ran into Roy Jr and Tom, his instructor. For someone on his first openwater dive, as part of his dive course, Roy looked very comfortable in the water and was having a great time exploring the ship he helped sink. He had even cleaned up some of the detonation cable that was still attached to parts of the ship.
We then headed up to where the bridge once stood. This area is a little bare, there was talk of a false bridge being built, but it obviously never went ahead. On the wall was a bank of gauges and a safe. Craig tried the combination lock, but the door wouldn’t open.
From here we headed up to look at the funnels and radar towers. During the dive I could hear humpback whales in the distance and also a banging noise. We found the source of the noise at the radar tower, a hatch had been left on at the top of the tower and was banging with the surge. This would have to be fixed before recreational divers were allowed on her.
The funnels will be good for safety stops, as they sit in only 3m of water. I was surprised that I hadn’t seen one fish on the ship, but some of the group did see small fish and a wobbegong was reported to be inside the ship by one of the commercial divers. This time next year she will be covered in fish, invertebrates and coral growth.
By now we had been down for 50 minutes. Craig and I headed over to the bow gun for a final look. As we ascended I checked to see how many photos I had taken, 154, not bad in 50 minutes.
Back on the boat everyone was buzzing, especially Greg Riddell and Paul White. They had been finally rewarded after all the hard work they had done with SCARG with this wonderful tourist attraction in their front yard.
“She’s just phenomenal,” said Greg after the dive, “and there is a lot of her to explore”. Paul added “When I saw her off the coast on the weekend, with all the holes cut in her, she looked a little sad, but seeing her on the bottom she is majestic, and she has her dignity back”.
On the way back to the harbour we were comparing stories on what we had seen and what were the highlights. And all of us felt very honoured and privileged to have done the very first pleasure dive on the HMAS Brisbane.