I wanted to dive again, and there is a wreck off the coast near Townsville which is famous for being a fantastic dive site. It rests at 28 m, so in order to get a proper look at it, I decided to get my Advanced Open Water certification, which would let me go down to 30 m. The dive trips all left on Friday evening and so I ended up having to book the course in a hurry and as I boarded the boat I wondered whether I was being a little hasty. The instructor was a Finnish guy who didn't strike me as particularly patient or sympathetic, so I was feeling pretty nervous considering I'd only just got my Open Water certification.

We left Townsville Harbour at around 23.00 and sailed for six hours overnight to Wheeler Reef. I was in a cabin at the bow of the ship under the water line, so there was constant sloshing and engine noise, which - combined with the rocking of the boat - didn't make for a restful night. We dived four times the following day, and I was exhausted! The reef was gorgeous and my buddy was the same kind of level as me, so I enjoyed it. The last dive was at night, and we saw turtles and a white-tipped reef shark whose eyes glowed green in the torch light circled us for 20 minutes. We headed on to Davies Reef and had some challenging dives the next day in strong currents. I'm a really poor swimmer and I get tired easily when I'm fighting against a current. We did a drift dive where we were taken along by the current but I found that was tough as well since we had to swim away from the reef quite a way to get to the boat, which couldn't come too close. On the third night, we sailed five hours across to the wreck site. The Yongala was a steam ship built in 1903, which sank in a cyclone in 1911 and was discovered in 1957. The reason she sank is still unknown as there was no radio on board (ironically, it was planned to install one when she got to Cairns). They think that she probably got swamped with water from the high waves and overturned, but it would have been quick because no lifeboats were launched. There were 122 people on board and no survivors, though people held out hope for a while until bits of flotsam was found. The area is protected and is technically a gravesite, and I was a bit leery of going down there, but it is renowned for the amazing coral and fish life. Because it is the only large structure in the area and is in a nutrient-rich current, coral polyps have colonised it and aquatic animals use it for protection. It is also a cleaning station, where large creatures come to be picked of parasites by small fish.

We dived at dawn and the current was really strong. There was a line running from the stern of our boat to a mooring buoy and then down to a bollard on the wreck. We were whisked along the line and Lonna, my buddy, lost her grip and started to be taken away. The instructor and I grabbed her and she managed to fight her way back, but started to panic. I realised that we couldn't both lose it, so it actually made me a lot more calm as I was reassuring her. We made our way down the line and at about 15 m, you could see the wreck eerily appear. It was completely covered with marine life, and there are some massive fish around: gropers, giant trevally, maori wrasse, loads of loggerhead turtles, rays and green sea snakes (which are ten times as venomous as the king cobra... or so they tell me). We went along what used to be the deck, looking in the cargo holds and over the mast. We dived again a couple of hours later, and saw a bit more, but I tend to use up my air fairly fast so I couldn't see as much as I wanted. It was a really sad place, but an example of how adaptable life is. We sailed back to Townsville and the skipper let me drive the ship for a while until we had veered around so much that people started complaining.