We left the marina at 10.15 after a nice breakfast and after a lumpy 40 minute ride we got to the site of the wreck SS Shirala
We got the shot in and the first pair Roy and myself got ready and went in. As we went down the line it got darker and darker As it was Roy’s first ship wreck this was not what I had hoped for. When we got to the wreck there was only about two metres of vis and that was with a very good light. The wreckage we could see looked very interesting – broken clay jars and big lump of metal.
There was a lot of fish life all around us and a big conger eel in one hole. I found a nice size crab but left it there as I did not want to stay too long down there with Roy as we would be going back up on a delayed SMB and Roy had never done that before.
After twenty minutes I sent up the SMB and up we went. Roy did well at first but lost control after a minute at six metres. Back on the surface the boat picked us up and the second group got ready to go in. This time it would be three divers – Tim, Paul and Simon. We waited for a bit of time while another boat sent all his divers down our shot line, then in they went. The other boat picked up all of its divers before our divers surfaced after a forty minute dive. I drove over and picked them up and we had a bit of a chat and a coffee before heading back to the marina. On the way back we let Roy have his first drive of the boat. When we got back we refuelled the boat, washed our kit and the boat, then all went home.
I have had a lot better dives on the Shirala but it was a good day out and Roy’s first ship wreck went well. (JA)
